See what I mean about misunderstanding text! LOL, thanks again my Lady, and Rhea.

I've got to reply here, because I think if you understand why people debate, the forum itself might not get so defensive about the "debate".

Why do people debate about the Iraq war? Why do people debate about soap operas? Or why person X down the street has a brown bin rather than a pink one? It's not necessarily about the subject, as much as it is about the stimulation of a debate.

All the topics I've listed are theoretical, just as this is. You don't see anyone questioning why people debate about Iraq. Debating about it won't change anything. It's all utterly hypothetical. Its social snobbism which turns the nose up on one topic over another. Debating a subject one understands isn't about winning, its about listening, countering, proposing and sometimes, yes, sometimes, learning. I've learned from these character debates by listening. I personally love the story of FF7, and what you call LTD, does affect the interpretation of that story. It's not a constricted affair of no consquence to the narrative - how you percieve the characters AFFECTS the narrative greatly. So even if we want to be a little snobbish and say "why debate over pixels?", the relationships between the core protagonists dictate the atmosphere, intent and to some extent the story of the Compilation.

So quite naturally people will debate because they enjoy debating and/or because its not JUST about shipping, its about the story. I personally don't give a fig about Tifa or Aeris, but I am fascinated by the story.


Again, you've got to stop pigeon holing "LTD" on any debate which Cloud/Aeris/Tifa/Zack come up. It demeans the point of the debates and makes your lives one HELL of a lot harder! You can't just have one debate because - from what I've seen here lurking - people aren't going out expressly to debate "LTD" they go to debate the relationship between Cloud and say, Aeris, or Zack and Aeris, or Tifa and Aeris... these key characters are all related and quite naturally, how you define the relationship of, say, Cloud to Aeris, will include Aeris to Cloud. It will eventually touch on Zack. As all debates go - as with essays - you cannot debate without looking at all angles and aspects to an issue. You naturally have to look at what Aeris feels towards Cloud to understand the pretexts and intents in the narrative that might justify the other way. They are ALL related.

The sooner people - not just staff, but members - and even debaters in these topics as well - start to see that in any story, key characters and their relationships WILL be discussed and when there is uncertainty, familar territory WILL pop up, the more mature the community will become. Pigeon hole any issues which bring up the chemistry/motivation/relationship/narrative intent of Cloud/Tifa/Zack/Aeris as "LTD" confines debate and prevents it from working properly.

LTD should have been a simple debate over the love triangle game in disk one of FF7 and those repercussions. You cannot try and extend that issue across any discourse over Cloud, Tifa, Zack and Aeris. Not when they now span over two games, an animated feature, a CG feature and three or four prologues! It's not the same situation.

I recommend bluntly to throw aside this silly love triangle debate collective as its out dated. I think shippers should learn its not something they can complain about because the debate doesn't belong to EITHER side. It's not just a debate that involves "Cloti" and "Cleris", it concerns those who want to intellectually discuss the ramifications of narrative, characters and relationships in a series they love. It insults people like myself who does not ship, that if I'm to debate the issues and intents between Cloud and Aeris, or Cloud and Tifa, that I have to go into the kiddy playpen called "The LTD Debate".

In the end its your call. This has been my suggestion. It make the forums hard to deal with when mods close threads through complaints, where there is very little nastiness involved, but just over-protective shippers (from both sides I'm sure) having a whine about someone suggesting their pairing isn't canon or whatever. There was one thread which was closed AFTER the mods had sorted out the problem for no reason, which again, just doesn't help bring a community together. I wrote a long, objective post in that thread, on the basis that the trouble had been dealt with and all was well, then the thread was closed for pretty much being "spammy" (despite the fact the thread was back on track).

When members aren't sure whether a thread is going to be closed because its "LTD" or because its not quite talking about the precise two characters in the topic because like a time bomb it will explode into an LTD if they do, it becomes inhibative and tiresome. I don't want to waste my time posting a serious point only to have the thread closed because it's too LTD.

Drop the fear of character debate, slap members who are rude, and lets get away from this silly LTD conception. LTD does not contribute to debate and I'm seeing it more times than not, closing threads for just debating characters, not for attacks on "Cloti"/"Cleriths".

Peace.