I like Aerith Gainsborough

[Jiro]

As much as fans of both pairings say there's canonical evidence to support their claim, a lot of it is left to subjective interpretation. I'm still a firm believer that Cloud could have been with either of them -- or neither given that um romance is not more important than saving the world. The fact that Cait Sith's only accurate prediction included Aerith dying and her/Cloud being a perfect match kind of sums that up for me, and it's hard to deny that Cloud had a thing for Tifa growing up (and even harder to deny that they had sex underneath the Highwind). Arguments on both sides are really intense and broad with lots of material from various other games, interviews, etc, but I just -- I don't think there is a right answer here and it's the speculation that interests me the most.

[Skyblade]

I think Aeris is a great character, I just think the Aeris/Cloud shippers were playing a completely different game.

They might have been. Isn't the whole love triangle thing depended on the dialog options you choose? It's been a while.

The changes are relatively small, and even with the changes, she seems more interested in fixing his shattered psyche than romancing him.

[Edge7]

Admittedly, when I first joined this forum, I did a lot of Aerith bashing. But that was about 8 years ago.

Nowadays my sentiment is more or less "eh, she's alright". I like her cute, upbeat personality, and despite always being a Tifa fan, I always found Aeris to be the more attractive girl from a character design standpoint. I guess my basic gripe is that (SPOILER)she dies too early for me to have ever gotten attached to her. I always remember her as "that cute girl who flirted with Cloud a lot, btw she's the last Cetra".

I feel like if Aerith was present in the party until right before Cloud rejoins the party in Mideel, I could have seen a bit more of Aerith independent of Cloud. Granted, Tifa suffers from the same problem to an extent, but at least I knew she was chasing Sephiroth for her own reasons (avenging her father) just as much as wanting to be with Cloud. Aerith just kinda follows Cloud and then after the scene at Kalm has maybe two dialogue boxes during which she ponders Sephiroth's status as an Ancient.

Again, that's just how I saw Aerith. I've been reading everyone else's comments here, and I've noticed that other people do bring up some good points. I just never thought about that when I played through the game.

[Jiro]

A lot of people played through this game when they were younger, and as such they had different mindsets and their opinion on Aerith was informed like that. Playing it later in life, but already knowing that she dies, means people are less likely to get invested and really explore her as a character, so the intricacies and cleverness of Aerith are a little lost.

[DrAssenov]

I really really like Aerith. She grew up in the hood, which is where I grew up. She was fearless and was really spunky. If they gave her a voice in the original FFVII or if they made an anime of the actual game, I'm pretty sure people would find her very interesting and hilarious.
I replayed FFVII in my late-twenties and couldn't stop laughing at Aeris' plot to get Cloud to crossdress to save his childhood crush, Tifa. How shocked and insulted Cloud's pixelated-polygonal body language seemed made me imagine it in real life.
Aeris knew that there might have been something between the two, but any jealousy that could have been there didn't get in the way of wanting to do what was right - save Tifa. She was flawed like a human, yet still tried to do the right thing.
I also agree with all the other awesome stuff you guys have been saying.