In a picture I see a two tail fox which would usually indicate a kitsune, most multi tailed foxes are kitsune. So I go to tag it, TWYS and all that, with Kitsune and though it says Post Saved, the tag doesn't show up anywhere let alone species. O.o Eh, what happened?

Kitsune is aliased to fox. If you tag kitsune, it will automatically change to fox.

So mischievous shrine guarding spirit foxes are just multi tailed foxes. Ok... Well, if that's official ruling there ain't much I can do about it.

You can try putting an argument forward but there's no guarantee you'll succeed. In the meantime, try searching fox multi_tail -miles_prower.

I'm also considering things such as more human-like beings featuring fox ears and a tail/tails. Some of that sort could fall under the kitsune sort as well. Or rather, kitsune can also be depicted as such. Essentially, a speretate kitsune tag should indeed perhaps be considered.

wolfywoo944 said:
I'm also considering things such as more human-like beings featuring fox ears and a tail/tails.

Those are currently tagged as cat_humanoid.

EDIT: fox_humanoid. Fuck, how did I get that wrong?

Rather, fox_humanoid, it appears. I suppose, however, that my point is precisely that; it's blended across multiple physicalities. Essentially, a kitsune is its own kind of being, so a seperate tag for it could be nice. But, eh, uncertainty still remains.

That's the problem, though. How can you clearly tell which multi-tailed foxes and fox humanoids are kitsune and which ones aren't?

That indeed is the difficulty. I suppose it's up to judgement. For instance the pokemon ninetails is not a kitsune, neither would zoroark be, despite that pokemon being based off the kitsune.

If we are going to get technical, kitsune just means fox. The term for a multi tailed trickster is kyuubi.

Depends on the tails. IF its a divine seven tailed fx its Junko. Four or 9 tails are tenko (heaven) and 9 tails can be referred to as kyuubi.

But all Kitsune are just foxes. Thats what the word means.

Myth states that kyuubi and etc are youkai of foxes. THat is to say a fox that has lived for a very long time and grown a new tail with each thousand years it has lived (give or take based on the myth.)

They like to impersonate humans.

The tag you should use for the 9 tailed trickster fox should be either gumiho or kyuubi. Not kitsune.

Theres also khumari but thats a whole other can of worms.

GDelscribe said:
Depends on the tails. IF its a divine seven tailed fx its Junko. Four or 9 tails are tenko (heaven) and 9 tails can be referred to as kyuubi.

But all Kitsune are just foxes. Thats what the word means.

Myth states that kyuubi and etc are youkai of foxes. THat is to say a fox that has lived for a very long time and grown a new tail with each thousand years it has lived (give or take based on the myth.)

They like to impersonate humans.

The tag you should use for the 9 tailed trickster fox should be either gumiho or kyuubi. Not kitsune.

Theres also khumari but thats a whole other can of worms.

problem with the use of kyuubi is that it likly alot people outside of japan will assume it as the name of that specific 9 tailed fox demon in naruto not the name of the species as a whole. The problem also is that it does not apply to all multi tailed supernatural fox-like species...

Ruku said:
problem with the use of kyuubi is that it likly alot people outside of japan will assume it as the name of that specific 9 tailed fox demon in naruto not the name of the species as a whole. The problem also is that it does not apply to all multi tailed supernatural fox-like species...

Which is why I brought up Gumiho, Junko and Tenko as well actually.

Most people do assume that its just the Naruto Kyuubi yeah, that is an issue.

GDelscribe said:
Which is why I brought up Gumiho, Junko and Tenko as well actually.

Most people do assume that its just the Naruto Kyuubi yeah, that is an issue.

gumiho is the korean pernounciation for 9 tailed fox so still the same problem of not being inclusive to all all multi tailed fox species not to mention that because its korean based and not main stream, its likly never to find great usage with people just continuing to default to the present fox + multi_tail tagging scheme.

Junko depending on other conected characters is japenese for variable forms of child.

Tenko another name for a japanese 9 tailed fox, same issues as gumiho

this what can be gleamed from wikipedia.

simply 9-tailed_fox would be best but then we would also need to to make 8-tailed_fox, 7-tailed_fox, 9-tailed_wolf, 9-tailed_cat and so on... present sheme covers that without having to create hundreds of redundent tags.

The supernatural species commonly referred as kitsune have the same problem that is presently debated on the lycan deimplication thread forum #213339 . Outside of lore there is nothing there to differentiate the Japanese 9 tailed fox from other casually multi tailed fox or cat fursonas if they are not in the middle of performing some supernatualy action like transformation(kitsunas shifting betweeen human(often a women) and feral forms)

Kitsune and fox ought to remain combined, in my opinion.

I mean, for one, kitsune means fox. All foxes are kitsune and all kitsune are foxes. Sometimes it is used to specifically mean multi-tailed foxes, but then we get into subjective issues that it's better to avoid. And generally speaking you can find such images by searching for fox multi_tail anyway.

There's no good reason to draw a distinction between them.

Maybe, though with TWYS if I see a two tail and think it is a kitsune then I'll tag it as such. As for all foxes are kitsune, some kitsune might argue with that. >.< Like saying all humans are Asian, your over generalizing. Some foxes are Kitsune, but all Kitsune are foxes with 2 to 9 tails depending on how old they are, mischievous, spirits, and, if old, very powerful and rare.

Roseroar said:
...all Kitsune are foxes with 2 to 9 tails depending on how old they are, mischievous, spirits, and, if old, very powerful and rare.

By that definition, Miles Prower is a kitsune.

Roseroar said:
Maybe, though with TWYS if I see a two tail and think it is a kitsune then I'll tag it as such. As for all foxes are kitsune, some kitsune might argue with that. >.< Like saying all humans are Asian, your over generalizing. Some foxes are Kitsune, but all Kitsune are foxes with 2 to 9 tails depending on how old they are, mischievous, spirits, and, if old, very powerful and rare.

Kitsune is literally the Japanese word used to refer to foxes, including those with only one tail. Yes, literal foxes. Like, the ones out in the woods eating berries and rodents.

If you want a term to refer to multi-tailed foxes, it should not be Kitsune, because that has a whole bunch of issues with it.

If you want such a word, go with multi-tailed_fox. I don't think that's a good tag, but it's a heck of a lot better than kitsune.

I honestly dont see any issue sith the term gumiho if you really want to focus on the mythical beast but by that standard you should just use fox humanoid cause most representative versions will be humanoid in nature

Or the multi tail tag

Also complaining that theres an issue because gumiho and tenko are regional is semantics and not an issue

GDelscribe said:
I honestly dont see any issue sith the term gumiho if you really want to focus on the mythical beast but by that standard you should just use fox humanoid cause most representative versions will be humanoid in nature

Or the multi tail tag

Also complaining that theres an issue because gumiho and tenko are regional is semantics and not an issue

GDelscribe i most certainly am not complaining, i have no idea where you are making that assumption. All i am stating is the fact that because they are regional terms and have not become mainstream anywhere yet, they are unlikly to be populated or understood to a meaningful extent compared the the present tagging scheme used for these characters.

True, even what I said is over generalizing. Some multi tailed foxes are Kitsune, but not Tails or Miles Prowler, etc. But the first time I saw Tails I thought he was a Kitsune until someone corrected me. >.< I was so happy to see someone with a Kitsune character that wasn't a 9 tail.

There's no real distinction between the two terms. "Kitsune" is exactly the same as "fox". There are more specific classifications, such as nogitsune, senko, tenko, and many, many others I couldn't be bothered to list. Youko (Japanese: 妖狐) or Huli-jing (Chinese: 狐狸精) is the generic term for mythical fox spirits, not "kitsune".

As for using these as tags, there's absolutely no reason to create a separate tag for mythological/magical foxes. You can simply tag multi_tail and magic where appropriate.

No matter which definition we'd use, it wouldn't work well. What counts as kitsune depends on who you ask. Keep it aliased, but tag multiple_tails and japanese_mythology where applicable.

Though that reminds me: maybe we should have some tag for kitsunebi?:
post #203762 post #13697

Fire doesn't quite describe it well enough. ...how about tagging those as something like floating fire, or even fox fire?

Genjar said:
Fire doesn't quite describe it well enough. ...how about tagging those as something like floating fire, or even fox fire?

will-o-wisp

What jackal said. Kitsunebi is not unique to foxes. And is represented identically to both will-o-wisp and the japanese concept of hitodama or spirit fires.

So that tag works for sure.

Also youko works for sure. In general the greater youkai classification applies if we want to tag that but im not sure how many people would be searching for umbrellamonster porn. THere is of course the cuter youkai from things like youkai watch or touhou project but those characters can easily be found in their respective series.

Not to say that im against a classification tag. BUt it would be very niche.

Jackalfag said:
will-o-wisp

I was thinking of something more broad than that. Will-o-wisp doesn't seem applicable to posts such as post #235345, post #769664 or post #993761... or does it?

Genjar said:
I was thinking of something more broad than that.

There's "ghost light" as a generic catch-all term for floating lights or fires, but that's it.

Genjar said:
Will-o-wisp doesn't seem applicable to posts such as post #235345, post #769664 or post #993761... or does it?

With the first and third images, there's other sources of flame present in the image.
In the first image, there isn't really anything to set it apart from plain ol' pyromancy.
In the third, Koen's lower body is wreathed in flame. As with the above, this is more indicative of pyromancy than a will-o-the-wisp.

This is kind of hard to quantify, but I'd argue that a will-o-wisp would appear (mostly) independent of a character. The second image comes pretty close to fulfilling this criteria.

Roseroar said:
...the first time I saw Tails I thought he was a Kitsune until someone corrected me...

Nobody needed to correct you, and you don't need to capitalize that word. Like GL said, it just means fox. The fact that it's frequently misused by people who don't speak the language doesn't change its meaning.