I did find it strange that the LTD does have a lot of pro Cloud X Tifa voices in it from my prospective. I am not necessarily saying that they ship that particular pairing but maybe what Cat on Mars says is true, that the amount of Cloud X Tifa pairing individuals in the LTD could be drastically exaggerated. Although it is hard to gauge whether or not he is joking or being serious. So I dunno.
Might have something to do with the knowledge required to get to the stance,
If I can be forgiven for some gross generalizations here.
I think that it's obvious that there are surface level shippers on both sides, and informed/dedicated ones.
It's not a surprise that anyone actually debating the LTD is probably among the later.
So for the generalizations I'd expect the reasons for the respective shippers to be as such:
Casual Clerith shippers just mainly like fairy tales, they like Clerith because that's what they see in the narrative and they like to be swept away by fantasy.
Casual Cloti shippers just mainly influenced by plot, they see Cloud end up with Tifa, they see that Tifa was the one he loved as a kid, case closed, Tifa wins.
Third group of casual shippers just prefers a certain girl because they just like that girl
I think that for casual shippers, the ratio is about 50-50, with CC probably pushing it more towards Cloti.
But when it comes to the informed shippers we run into two new factions.
Dedicated Cloti fans know that Cloti has basically been pushed ever since 1997, so they're pretty happy, and people just looking at it rationally tend to come to this conclusion.
Dedicated Aerith fans have been forced to make a stand mostly on emotional grounds.
I still don't think the actual numbers are a lot different, but it would explain some of the representation on forums such as these. I think that any place that's rife with debate, will ultimately favor the group with the stronger argument. If your position is grounded on emotion, this will eventually get tiresome, so you leave to some place where your opinion wont be challenged by facts.
Which is why I suspect that a larger portion of the Clerith fanbase is probably located on tumblr or other more personally overseen locations. While Cloti inevitably seems to get the overhand in the more open communities.
And this is why you see a different ratio as well in casual tweets or polls or other things that have a healthy participation of casual shippers.
I do actually think Cloti requires a bit more caring about sub-text than Clerith, which mainly requires you to follow your emotions. Which, when dealing with people, gives Clerith a distinct advantage I'd assume, but that advantage was undone by Zerith swinging the emotions pendulum the other way as soon as a person has played CC.
But I am relatively certain the TLS doesn't represent the debate ratio as a whole. As soon as one group starts to feel like the more dominant side somewhere, the other side logically starts avoiding it, which leads to claims of bias, which leads to a larger avoidance, repeat ad infinitum.
Honestly didn't expect these forums to be too active in general.
