I can’t word my feelings for Lilo and Stitch. It’s a perfect movie. Lilo and Nani are the realest characters Disney has ever portrayed in animation. They’re both trying to cope with an unimaginable trauma. Nani has it worse because she’s completely cognizant of what

They have to lose. She’s trying her best and she’s still failing. She’s suffering because her parents are dead, she’s got a special needs sister who taxes her daily, CPS has already been involved and she doesn’t seem to have much of a support system in place for herself

Much less her little sister. I imagine she cries herself to sleep every night. She’s emotionally exhausted and she gave up her dreams so that she and her sister could stay together.

She wants desperately to succeed, she knows she has to for Lilo’s sake, but all the strings are slipping out of her hands.

Just look at the condition of the house, for instance. Dishes everywhere, unwashed laundry. It’s one of the signs of her having too much on her plate.

Then there’s the fiasco at the stupid fakey luau.

She’s obviously had to bring Lilo with her because there’s no one to watch her and you can’t leave a six year old (even a neurotypical one) alone in a house while you’re at work. So she probably had to obtain special permission from her manager for Lilo to even be there.

So she’s already a bundle of nerves.

And then the fiasco.

Now she’s jobless (again), and she’s got no idea when she’s going to find another job or even if she can. So there’s more worry.

She probably knows the entire community is watching her every move (but not offering to help because ya know, that’s her business not mine but man does it make for good gossip).

It’s incredible pressure for an adult, much less a 16 yr old girl still processing her own trauma.

Then here comes Mr ‘they send me the hard cases’ social worker who all but verbatim threatens to take her only lifeline away. (Which I think Lilo interprets as ‘Nani wants to send me away’.)

My god, I’m surprised Nani didn’t crack right then.

When it’s all but inevitable that Bubbles is going to have to take Lilo, Nani STILL stays strong for Lilo and tries to explain what’s happening but she knows she hasn’t gotten through.

Can you imagine what would have happened to Nani had Cobra taken Lilo?

She’s have felt like a total failure and probably would have slid into a depression that she’s never been able to crawl out of.

God, I love Nani so much.