This is very, very simple logic.
Like Locke and Celes do in their quote, Cloud and Tifa confirm their mutual feelings for each other. They just do it sans words. The entire page is concerned with the romances of party members across the final fantasies.
To say it's only confirming their friendship, or that they were horny and had sex but it meant nothing, that he just used Tifa, that's just nonsense, and I have to wonder why you'd even want Aerith to have a Cloud that was such a flagrant asshole and used people like that just to get his jollies.
All that aside, This Ultimania is telling us that Ingus and Sarah, Cecil and Rosa, Locke and Celes, Squall and Rinoa, Steiner and Beatrix, Zidane and Garnet, and Tidus and Yuna all confirm their feelings for each other, and you can accept perfectly fine that those feelings are love, even in Locke and Celes' case where it specifically uses the same phrase, but it you think it means something completely different when it comes to Cloud and Tifa.
Even though Cloud has had his obscured love for Tifa, his heart called out to hers, he opened his heart only ever to her, she has a future together with him, she is the mother of their family and she views him as the father, she is the important woman to him who is always singled out from everyone else, etc. etc. etc. etc.
I know you don't LIKE this. You don't have to LIKE it. That's not what this is about. This is about the canon. The narrative. The story. And the story just didn't end up C/A. And I'm sorry that it upsets you that it didn't. But being upset doesn't change anything. It didn't change anything for the Luke/Leia shippers, for the Harry/Hermione shippers, the Ataru/Shinobu shippers, or any number of other fandoms with settled LTDs.
It's over. Your pairing is not canon.
Enjoy it anyways. Because no one is telling you not to. We're just bringing you the truth that it just... didn't happen. The other one did. Aerith didn't get Cloud, but it's not like it makes her less of a person or a character not to be the romantic interest, same as it doesn't make Eiko any less of one for not getting Zidane, or Kain any less for Rosa choosing Cecil. It's just a fact of the story.
I've said this before, it's unfortunate that this entire debacle became a sort of 'VS' match between Aerith and Tifa, because for awhile it became more about each girl 'winning' Cloud than understanding the story. And I know it's hard to think of Aerith as 'losing', since you all love her character extremely much, but it's only 'losing' because you imagine it as her losing, instead of the story unfolding a particular way. It's not about either girl winning or losing. It's about a narrative, and that narrative has spoken, and it has spoken against what you wanted to happen. And I sympathize with that. But you cannot just deny it. It's there. It's clear cut. Any protestations otherwise are either extremely tortured, turn Cloud into such an asshole you'd wonder why you'd want anyone to be in a relationship with anyone, or both.
So, please, don't treat this as a battle to be won. Please, look at this as an collection of people's narratives. Don't look at what you want to happen, but what did happen. Don't be mad that you 'didn't win', be excited that your favorite game managed to tell a tale that surprised you as it did.
But above all else, please, don't take this personally. I certainly didn't when I posted the article. Tres didn't when he translated the page. We were both happy to have been proven correct in our theories, but we felt exactly the same to have the succession of witches in Final Fantasy 8 to be proven to be real women and not illusions, and for Rinoa not to be Ultimecia. We don't see this as a battle. We get angry, yes, but not because we hate you, but because many times you act infuriating, because it seems like you treat this as a pitched battle with a vendetta you seek to sate.
But that's not what the LTD is. It was a debate. A discussion between people with different ideas about the canon over what that canon actually was. But there's no more reason for the debate. Cloud and Tifa, along with all the other pairings of final fantasy, confirmed their feelings for each other, their renai, their romantic love for each other. Nothing even remotely of the sort has been said of Cloud regarding Aerith. The argument, is absolutely and completely over.
So scream, yell, call me evil and biased and twisted and invent all sorts of excuses for me, because at this stage, it only reflects poorly on you all. Not me. I'll let the record speak for itself. And I think, in the coming days, I'll try and do exactly that. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to collect an association of quotes and scans so that they may all make their arguments for themselves.
Actually, come to think of it, if you want to try and prove that Cloud also loves Aerith romantically, you may attempt so, but please, don't try and prove he doesn't love Tifa, or that he loves Aerith more than Tifa based on the available evidence. Because it's just not really going to be fruitful at this juncture. And I really do think it will do you all more harm than good.
Said earnestly- and without any hint of malice or insult- for whatever much my word is worth.