#Whenever I reach the end of Naruto Shippuden and they're still a mess and not everything is solved and they're still imperfect‚ I cry of joy

[team7-headquarter]

Team 7 is for the fans who can stomach complex and interesting relationships that evolve with time and follow a nonlinear progress.

They're some of the most traumatized individuals in Konoha and one girl who has zero preparation to deal with it. Compared to Team 7, all the other teams were normal. Neji was a slave and Hinata was neglected, but they still had their clan around them, okay? Even when Rock Lee was probably a bullied orphan, his story is closer to Sakura's at worst. Everyone else had healthy families or they were at least regular people.

Do I really have to make emphasis on the Team 7 men's backgrounds? It is a miracle they were as "normal" as they were. It is a miracle only Sasuke became an antagonist.

If you don't like Team 7's dynamic that's okay. It is your opinion and everyone is entitled to have one. But don't claim they didn't care about each other like it is a fact. They do not have perfectly healthy relationships, but it doesn't mean they don't care or that they don't consider each other important. They live in a highly militarized world that they struggle to comprehend because the system has targeted them since they were kids. They didn't have the benefit of a family who taught them or gave them a good example on social behaviors (yes, even Sakura— her parents are nonexistent and irrelevant to the canon).

Sasuke used to have a clan and you can see it in the way he first interacted as a kid with Naruto and Sakura. His behavior afterward was a direct result of political machinations that were in place from the very beginning of the Shinobi world. It's the same with Naruto; Sakura and Sasuke were his first friends after a life of having no one, so of course he is "obsessed" with them. Kakashi Lost everyone and then they make him responsible for the saddest + most problematic kids in Konoha. Sai was tortured and trained to dismiss feelings and he had to learn how to smile. Sakura was a normal 12 years old girl forced to navigate those circumstances and guess what: it was their model of friendship she adopted. Her friendship with Ino was somehow chill (friends who could have been codependent, but rather become rivals so they could both grow on their own), but that was her only friendship and the influence and impact of a life with Team 7 was too great for her not to adapt herself to it.

Yamato is the normal one. That's how insane the situation is...

Maybe in another life Sasuke and Naruto could have the childhood friendship of Shikamaru and Choji or the type of chill rivalry between Neji and Rock Lee. Maybe in a world where they didn't have the fate of the world on their shoulders, they were more normal. Maybe in that universe Sakura would have been properly guided so she doesn't believe her growth is only measured in beauty or making a boy notice her; maybe she would be confident enough as a child to better navigate her friendship with Sasuke and Naruto, instead of having to learn it through trial and error. Maybe Sai would have grown with the social tools to be in a no-awkward friendship, maybe he'd openly connect with others through art and not insults. Maybe Kakashi's regrets would be less and their weight wouldn't hamper on his ability to connect with his students. Maybe his own PTSD would not stand in the way.

As it is, Team 7 is full of individuals who fight for the right to form connections despite the odds being against them. They hold to each other with both hands despite the fact it'd be easier and less painful to let the other die. They don't care if their friendship is not perfect, they still want it.

It's unhealthy, it's insane, they shouldn't have to do it, but they want to. Because. They. Care.