stan thalia atallah and sara al bazali

i think one of her parents (probably her mom) is arab while the other one comes from a european family (thats how veronica ended up with an english name) or her parents are both arabs idk.

hc shes from an interfaith family (either muslim parent x jewish parent, jewish parent x christian parent or christian parent x muslim parent idk) (mostly im only going to be talking about her experiences with having a muslim parent bc thats my background and what i feel more confident speaking about. jewish/christian homies help me out here-) though i think its funnier if shes born to a jewish-muslim household because in sherwood she'd get asked "oh why do i never see you at church" and shes like "ohhhhhh. uhm." is not a fan of letting people know her background especially because they're minority groups in america. she just tries to have both of them cancel each other out so she can just be a normal "atheist" american girl. (shes not completely atheistic but shes not very religious)

it would be funnier if both her parents were arab too bc then she genuinely has NOBODY except martha cuz the majority of her relatives and cousins would be back in palestine/other countries (jordan or lebanon) cuz they got ethnically cleansed.

her mom is an english teacher lmao (idk that's my grandmas profession before she had kids. like my grandma fr)

her mom agreed on giving her an english name because she didn't want veronica to get bullied in school or discriminated against whenever she submits a resume for a job application

or her name gets changed to Rania in this au. idk i think it should stay veronica.

during the 'great pate mom' scene i think her mom would offer the girls coffee or tea bc thats what we always serve guests.

veronica feels alienated from her culture. she isn't even "arab only by name" cuz she has a white name. she grew up in a western country. she doesn't get to see her relatives in the middle east or experience her culture often.

a bit shy around her relatives even though a lot of them speak english or are willing to translate for her. she misses visiting her relatives and cousins bc all the kids she knows there are so much more nicer to her than the kids at westerberg.

her mom lets her get a lot of shit when she visits her relatives and goes shopping downtown with them cus of the currency exchange rates with america lololol

doesn't talk about herself being an arab for a lot of reasons. first of all, negative biases towards arabs, insensitive comments she gets, she finds meeting other arabs a bit awkward bc she feels like an imposter among them, she also doesn't speak arabic fluently outside of basic conversation, and feels stupid whenever she tries to speak the language when it comes to pronunciation of words.

her parents and relatives make her watch arabic dramas with them. and they're really unhinged. (ty romeo & juliet mootie for this headcannon) especially so because veronica sometimes needs them to translate dialogue scenes for her so its very jarring to watch when she has no context for whats going on

as an young adult she gets drunk/high and watches a random one shes never seen to have fun 😭

the food too :3 she enjoys ramadan a lot bc her mom will always make special dishes during the month. scared of introducing levantine food to her peers bc shes afraid she'll get bullied or that they wont like it or think its weird.

she hasn't had a lot of typical american dishes and a lot of her classmates will get so surprised when she says she's never had a thanksgiving turkey or celebrated christmas.

it makes sense shes palestinian too bc according to wikipedia during the expulsion of Palestinians from 1948-modern day palestinians were the largest group of arab immigrants to the US. I think her mom got kicked out in the Nakba (also like my grandma fr) and made the trip to Jordan or Lebanon before going to the US. this parent probably immigrated to america in the late 60's or early 70's.

her parents want her to go to a fancy pants american university and as a result try to help her in her education where ever they can. sometimes her cousins (usually men) will visit america just to go to a faraway university. (sometimes if they're close enough they'll make the trip to sherwood to visit veronica and her parents tho especially during school breaks or ramadan or eid)

oh bye i cant believe i forgot to mention eid. Pretty fucking lonely when she isnt celebrating in the summer because thats the only time she sees her relatives

though when she was a kid her parents let her skip school and get money on eid : D

she wears evil eye accesories when she becomes a heathers bc of the superstition around jealousy + also the fact that its blue so it matches : ) . for those who dont know the superstition its basically that envy can harm people and a lot of people obviously become envious of veronica when she becomes a heather so... and the evil eye protects her from that.

being born in a muslim household:

since her family is from the levant i think they'd be more moderate about islam, especially bc they lived in the city before going to sherwood. idrk thats just the impression my mom has given me when comparing the levantine countries to like. gulf countries idk pls dont generalize these regions as a whole cuz there is still a lot of diversity as to how civilians practice their religion within each and every country and city and town

since she's so adamant on being a good person i think she does a lot of thought policing on herself. when she experiences thoughts that are upsetting to her (cough cough intrusive thoughts) she's like. authu-billahi-minashaytan-alrajeem (translated: I seek refuge in allah from the outcast satan) she falls into a spiral where she constantly starts saying this because shes afraid of being influenced by the devil she believes that the majority of her bad thoughts are from iblis and she herself isnt creating them because she's a Good Person so how could cruel and horrible thoughts come from her? for context: iblis (also called shaytan) is basically satan but islams version of it. he tries to get people sent to hell by giving them bad thoughts that can ruin them if they listen to them and internalize these thoughts.

during ramadan, iblis is banished to hell so he isnt able to tempt people into breaking their fast. that means all the thoughts that you have come from yourself, including the ones veronica thinks make her a bad person. including the ones where she wishes others dead. including- veronica is not a fan of this as much as she thought she would be because now shes like "im rlly just a horrible person all along bc these thoughts are coming from me." every time she experiences an intrusive thought during ramadan

still she decides to put up the front that shes a good person and hide away all the bad and ugly parts of her

her parents kind of have an air of superiority regarding western civilization because they consider themselves to be like,, more "sophisticated" and "proper" bc their culture doesn't encourage alcoholism and sex. it doesn't mean her parents are rude and arrogant to americans, (in fact they are very kind and hospitable) but it does mean that her parents create a barrier between their child, veronica and things that aren't deemed too "cheap" "vulgar" and not moderate enough for them. AKA a lot of mainly american things. things that veronicas parents wont let her do: parties, alcohol, sex ed, going to other peoples houses if her parents don't know if her friend lives with male relatives and if her parents haven't met said male relatives, being out past sunset, music that mentions haram stuff, books and movies about haram stuff, piercings, tattoos, punk music/culture, (bonus points if jd is punk in this AU), homosexuality (rip my dead gay son), going in forests at night because "the jinn in the trees will fall in your hair",

also can u blame her parents for having a vendetta against america cuz look at what those mfs did to the middle east 😭🖕

growing up, veronica never really thought of her parents boundaries as extreme bc she understood the reason behind it and veronica could always just write it off as her having "parents who are a bit strict because they're overprotective". also bc these boundaries never really got in her way until she joined the heathers

since veronica has only had one friend for 17 years of her life (martha) who 1. definitely knows her parents well 2. refrains from any haram behavior, her parents are basically were chill and trusting of veronica and martha

...until veronica joined the heathers

so. islam does promote everything in moderation and so. her mom was a bit upset at veronica for being a complete nobody in school who only had 1 (one) friend. she wished her daughter had a few friends and was decently liked among her classmates because she didnt want her daughter to be at the complete bottom (but she didnt want her daughter to be super popular at the top either)

... so you can probably imagine her shock when veronica went from being the least popular girl in her grade to being the most popular girl in her whole fucking school. mama sawyer was not very excited about that because her daughter went from one end of the spectrum to the other one overnight, when all she wanted her daughter to do was be in the middle of the popularity spectrum. to be moderate. she tried to remain optimistic about her daughter having new friends anyways.

i think it would be funny if veronica did everything in extremes instead of moderation. least popular girl in her grade -> most popular girl IN HER WHOLE SCHOOL -> the least popular girl in THE WHOLE SCHOOL. she keeps on bouncing between extremes.

the heathers also started dragging her into a lot of haram activities. alcohol, parties, sex etc.

sooo the more haram things she does -> the more shes withdrawn from her parents -> the more shes isolated herself from society as a whole -> the more shes tempted by JD and the heathers into doing haram things cuz u need to remember that veronica gradually gets more and more outcast from society throughout the story, which leads her to committing all that horrible shit with JD because at that point hes the only person she has who hasnt betrayed her or she hasnt betrayed. but the more bad things she does, the more isolated she gets from society and any support system she has (the school, her parents, her friends) and it spirals on and on (until she says no)

veronica automatically starting off senior year thinking shes a good person because she avoids haram activities. but when she gets pressured into drinking alcohol, she starts thinking "okay well atleast im the least evil among my friends who do haram" and then she kills someone. and she weighs it morally and shes like. well. you can go from being someone who is bad to someone who does good. you can always have the ability to change. but after you kill someone, you're just a murderer forever. im the worst among my friends forever.

(this is literally what my dad told me on the car ride home from watching heathers because he said that veronica became even worse than the heathers bc shes a murderer. thanks for the moral of the story dad)

the problem is that before she was a heather, she was never actively put into situations where she was given the chance to do haram things. and when she was when she became a heather, she never fought back against the pressure to do it and give in. veronicas character arc in this AU is learning to cross that barrier her parents created between her and her peers while simultaneously sticking to her own guts and moral code instead of going along without protest. learning to not be a bystander.

i don't think that veronicas that religious. sorry i think shes kind of lazy about her religious duties.

however she seeks repentance from allah during the time in between OLIG and prom or hell. she isolates herself from JD and from her classmates because shes like "well if engaging with western society and haram activities and breaking the restrictions my parents put on me got me into this mess, isolating myself and pressuring myself to revert to islam to pray for forgiveness will get me out"

she also does this with a genuine yearning for a sense of connection. her relationship with JD is strained. Her relationship with the heathers is broken. Her relationship with martha is strained. Her relationship with her parents is strained. her relationship with the school is broken. so she turns to god because she wants someone on her side looking out for her.

but since veronica has lacked genuine faith her whole life, when she forces herself to pray and stutter through passages of the quran that she doesn't really understand, she feels nothing. hollow. empty. mainly because of the fact that she's forcing herself to do it, so it doesn't come from a place of genuine faith but more out of desperation. when she doesn't feel any faith restore in her, she feels like a lost cause. she feels even more alienated from her parents and culture.

so when JD comes back to her in prom or hell, she crawls back to him cuz she broke her relationship with god. she has nothing.

her parents dont rlly believe in mental health they just think she needs a strong connection to her faith to not feel depressed and nihilistic and horrible

veronica recites duah (surat al fatiha, surat al nas and surat al falaq) when she panics

shes been prone to nightmares her whole life (the nightmare scene lmaooaao) so she makes her mom read her duah before she slept as a kid (bc when she did it herself she didnt believe it would work)

stopped asking her mom to read her duah as she got older bc it felt childish : ( "ima just thug out these nightmares and bad dreams" aah veronica.

heather duke automatically assumes veronica gets an ED during ramadan because 1. she doesnt know what it is 2. she just sees veronica stop eating or drinking anything and shes like "oh my god"

veronicas fasting triggering heather dukes ED (as far as i know if thats now how ED's work pls tell me) 😭 veronica has to explain the concept of ramadan to duke

veronica also isolating herself from her cultural norms because she wants to join her peers in their fun

okay thats all i really haveto say sorry for the extremely long yap.