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If she was a real person i'd totally go for her but shes not crying

I like her a lil bit, but Aerith was my favorite female character in the game.

I don't know why people try to discredit Tifa because of her outfit in the first place. If you look at the other female NPC's in Midgar they are dressed in similar attire. This leads me to believe that her choice of clothing was most likely not her personal choice but more as a way of fitting in with the Midgar population.

I like all the characters in FF7 and all for different reasons. Tifa was my second favorite... because she was and still is very interesting for me to do psycho-analysis on. I also like doing so with her fandom and picking apart differences and simularities into such. I only study Tifa herself though in the actual FFVII game. While by name official; AC, LO, etc... fall under my fandom study. This is do to something I call the fandom effect (when an original creation from one event/story is influenced and effected by the fan base). To me this created two very similar but stil different Tifas (or Cloud, Aeris, or whoever your talking about)... Tifa and fandom-Tifa... both official but different slighty. Covered with the event of in story passing time.
Example... I do see in AC fandom-Tifa is very motherly. However, in FFVII this motherly behavior does not really exist, or at least the closest thing I've found would be her simple concern for friends. A trait that can be motherly... but by itself does not make a person motherly. Does this make Tifa a bad characters? Of course not! It really just goes to show how fandom can change even something they enjoy.
"to those who say that "Tifa didn't pick her outfit, Nomura did" ... well, realistically, Tifa didn't pick her lines either." Too true of words. But Tifa does also become essentially what WE make her to be. We are the SE clients and if we want Tifa to emotionally mature from the game, shrink her bust size, cut her hair, or change her clothing (all of such happened upon the making of AC) then so be it. Such is the fate of a fictional character.
This applies to all the characters but since this is a Tifa thread so...
I like the character of Tifa... I prefer the Tifa untouched by fandom because to me that is the genuine Tifa I fell in love with. Fandom Tifa is cool too but I'm just sentimental.

I just have one question; How do you know that it's fandome that had changed the character and not the creator merely trying to portray a sense of maturity?

Quite possibly it could have been both. The thing is while watching the Tifa fandom rave before the release of AC I did note a cry from both Tifa and non-Tifa fans alike to emotionallly mature the character. From people whom support Clifa (please remember I'm working off generalizations from more than a year ago... not individuals) wanted Tifa to emotionally mature so that the pairing could be more stable. For people who liked Tifa simply because they liked the character they wanted the character to be emotionally stronger so she could live more happily. And even for Tifa-bashers... (I do realize most people hate Tifa because she was Aeris' foil and visa versa)... one big point they did not like about Tifa was her emotional instablity.
So, my guess, either way if the creator's wanted to emotionally mature Tifa in the first place then it was a win-win situation. The thing is we really can't rule either way because there WAS a demand to mature Tifa and the demand was met... and to make it really interesting I know of many Tifa-bashers that became Tifa fans after AC. Now, had there not been a demand for it and Tifa still have matured SE would be getting slack for changing the character. Also, nothing was changed about Tifa that wasn't called for in the fandom.
It works the same with Vincent... people refuse to acknowledge this interview statement "Vincent serves mostly as a representation of what Cloud would become if he let his grief consume him." Vincent is a great character just like Tifa... but do you think Vincent would have still been brought out of the optional character shadow if there wasn't a fan-base to do so? Or would Cloud and Aeris have appeared together in so many other games if there had not been a fan-base for it? Hell, if there wasn't a fan-base for it, AC could have completely gotten away with not bringing Sephiroth back!
Like I said, both original Tifa and fandom-Tifa are great characters but when talking ANY character you have to keep in mind the fandom can change anything. Tifa in the game is the only pure Tifa... untouched by outside influence.

not to be rude, crude or obscene, but when i think of tifa, yes she is very compassionate, but squaresoft sure gave her "full features." lol think about it.