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YMMV / Heathers: The Musical

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  • Accidental Innuendo: "Honey, whatchu waitin' for? Welcome to my candy store!"
  • Actor Shipping: Barret Wilbert Weed and Ryan McCartan, the original Veronica and J.D., get this a lot. Weirdly, Ryan's successor, Dave Thomas Brown, seems to get left out of it, even though Ryan was dating Dove Cameron at the time.
  • Adaptation Displacement: Most fanworks are based on the musical, though most musical fans have seen, or at least know the Broad Strokes of the film. Some works split the difference and adopt characterization from the film and apply it to the musical cast - for instance, most stories feature both Martha and Betty whether film- or musical-based, despite the show compositing the two.
  • Adorkable:
    • Veronica starts the play as an awkward outcast, and hasn't been friends with the Heathers for very long. A lot of her attempts to be cool come off as awkward, yet adorable.
    • Martha has all the traditional nerdy traits, but is such a sweet soul that makes you wonder why everyone is so mean to her.
    • Heather McNamara comes off as a bit of a Cloud Cuckoolander, but her sweet side endears audiences to her.
  • Alternative Character Interpretation:
    • How much is J.D. in control of his own actions? His implied history with mental illness and self-harm, not to mention his abusive upbringing and his snapping back to sanity eventually, could provide evidence that he's genuinely unstable and struggling to keep his own actions in check, not to mention his clear delusions about reality. However, J.D. has some serious manipulative skill and is capable of keeping a cool head and making elaborate plans, which could lend credence to the idea that he's in control of his actions, but is simply prone to breakdowns. His final sacrifice is also viewed in different lights, depending upon this; people who lean toward him being out of control often see it as Redemption Equals Death, whereas people who see him as being in control often see it as a manipulative final act to force Veronica to love him despite all he's done. And then there are those who simply see it as a tragic send-off to a tragic character.
    • While there's nothing in the text that explicitly points to it, aside from their status as a duo and some dialogue that could be taken as Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?, it's not unheard of for both the fandom and productions of the musical to play Kurt and Ram as actually being gay (or at least bi). Though the jury is out on whether that makes their behavior and ultimate demise better or worse.
    • Did Duke and/or McNamara intend for Veronica to be assaulted by Kurt and Ram, or did they just want to get the boys off their back? Did they even expect that they would actually go beyond flirting (which they didn't)?
      • For that matter, McNamara asks if Veronica finds Kurt and Ram cute, and, despite Veronica's denial, could be taken as a genuine belief that she thinks that Veronica IS interested in one or both of them.
    • After Veronica gets back from stopping the bomb, Heather Duke says to her, "You look like hell." Depending on how the line is said, it can sound like just a rude comment, or a sign that she's concerned after seeing that something awful happened (in her own way).
  • Audience-Alienating Premise: The musical sticks to its original premise of two teenagers who start killing students and framing them as suicides in an upper class white high school, starting with the local Alpha Bitch. It's full of Black Comedy, Mood Whiplash, and frequently Crosses the Line Twice, both playing the deaths of rich kids for laughs yet taking the act of suicide very seriously. Being based on an even darker source film that gathered a modest cult following, it didn't even make it to Broadway before major productions lost steam. It still attracted a very loyal following of adult fans of the original and teenagers that liked the snarky humor.
  • Awesome Music: Now in its full official soundtrack glory on YouTube. Have fun.
  • Base-Breaking Character:
    • Veronica Sawyer is a minor example. Fans of the movie prefer her more reserved and sarcastic portrayal while viewing the musical version as being too emotional and awkward, while fans of the musical prefer her awkwardness as being more genuine and adorkable. That being said, both groups get along pretty well and there is some overlap between them.
    • Is J.D. a Tragic Villain or just evil? Points said in defense of him range from the fact that J.D. is legitimately mentally ill, has a number of tragic and interesting traits, such as his abusive upbringing and genuine, if twisted, love for Veronica. Points against him are the fact he consistently manipulates and abuses Veronica, the fact that despite his mental illness, he's clearly in control of his actions at least initially, and the fact he's a murderer who intends to massacre a school full of people, refusing to accept responsibility for his own actions. These factors generally play into how people view J.D.'s fate.
  • Broken Base:
    • Replacing "Blue" with "You're Welcome" has become this among the fandom, with some hating it and finding it a poor replacement and think that the semi-rapping parts don't fit the tone of the show, while others think "You're Welcome" is even better than "Blue" as it plays Kurt and Ram's actions less for laughs and the lyrics are more overtly sexual harassment-ish. And then there's a third camp who like both songs.
    • Also is "Never Shut Up Again" a good song or not? Some are happy that Heather Duke finally gets her own song, but others find it underwhelming, not as clever or catchy as the other songs and ruins the theme of Heather Duke only singing reprises (to "Candy Store", "Blue" and "Shine A Light") to match having "no discernible personality".
    • Movie and musical fans have it out on occasion, typically over whether the musical's lighter and more empathetic approach to the story and characters is a necessary and welcome patch on some pretty flagrant Values Dissonance and Too Bleak, Stopped Caring, or an irritating change that undermines the original's message. It's comparatively tame compared to many original vs. adaptation debates, perhaps because most fans have seen both and more obvious targets for their ire, namely Riverdale and the TV series, exist.
    • The addition of "I Say No" to the West End version gets similar criticism to "Never Shut Up Again" above. Some fans think it is an empowering anthem that gives Veronica more of a chance to truly reject J.D. and his ways than in the original version (and is a clever reference to the Just Say No anti-drug movement of the 1980s). Others felt it was an unnecessary addition that works better out of context than as part of the show's soundtrack.
  • Creepy Awesome: J.D. qualifies for this, with his good qualities further in the forefront and the sheer Nightmare Fuel of his songs both being horrifying and oddly charismatic.
  • Crosses the Line Twice:
    • "Blue", and its reprise. Duke and McNamara setting Veronica up to be date-raped by Kurt and Ram and then them spreading rumours that she slept with them? Horrible. Them serenading her in a slow, heartfelt love ballad about the boys' "blue balls"? Darkly funny.
      • While "You're Welcome" is much, much darker, with Kurt and Ram being more threatening and Veronica actually in danger of being raped and fully aware of it - on top of the lyrics being rather unnerving - the beat is still disproportionately upbeat and catchy, Kurt, Ram and Veronica rapping some of their lines and Kurt and Ram beatboxing makes it laughable.
    • "My Dead Gay Son" expands the one line from the film to a full song by Ram's Camp Gay dad on how they must be enjoying themselves in heaven and he later makes out with Kurt's dad as the congregation cheers. With all this taking place in the middle of their sons' funeral, it's so ridiculous that it still ends up being funny.
    • Veronica making an Innocently Insensitive joke about J.D.'s mother knowing what he's up to and J.D. promptly explaining that his mother is, in fact, dead? Not funny. Veronica's Oh, Crap! face when J.D. explains this? Hilarious.
    • J.D pointing a gun at Veronica as he yells, "BUT I LOVE YOU!"? Scary. Veronica yelling, "Dude!!" in disbelief and it becomes funny again.
  • Cult Classic: Fitting, considering the original movie is one, too. The musical has yet to go to Broadway, isn't very highly budgeted, and has had very few well-known actors, even among theater fans. Fortunately, with the help of the internet, the show has a definite fanbase, and a very vocal one, at that — though it's still small enough that most of the fans are aware of each other, at least on Tumblr.
  • Do Not Do This Cool Thing:
    • Though not exactly cool, "Candy Store" puts the Heathers on a pedestal with all their hedonistic excess and general bitchiness, and they look so cool it's hard to deny their appeal, Veronica certainly didn't.
    • "Dead Girl Walking" makes the idea of breaking into your crush's house and demanding passionate, angry sex sound awesome.
  • Draco in Leather Pants:
    • There are two types of J.D. fans: those who see him as the tragic, complex, and likable, but ultimately villainous, obsessive, and murderous character he is, and those who see him as a misunderstood Woobie whose behavior towards Veronica is romantic. The former tend to find the latter incredibly embarrassing. (Luckily, they're a Vocal Minority.) And then there are those who see him, particularly his Musical variant, as sympathetic but not justifiable.
    • Similarly, there are those who ship J.D. and Veronica, but realize and admit it's an unhealthy train wreck and would never want anyone to be in a relationship like that in real life (as one fan put it, "No one hates J.D./Veronica shippers more than we hate ourselves."), and those who think they're a perfect couple who are tragically beautiful together. Again, the former don't get along with the latter.
    • To a lesser extent- because she is not a murderer- Heather McNamara. A lot of fans (even some on this very trope page) paint her as an innocent, kind woobie and ignore the fact that she was a willing, active, and gleeful participant in the bullying that the Heathers commit. It also happens with the original film, but it's much more frequent and pronounced in the musical fandom. Some fans also insist that she only went on with the bullying out of fear of being bullied herself and/or because Chandler and Duke have bullied her, even though canonically, it's Veronica who is threatened with facing the same treatment if she doesn't join in on Heather bullying Martha, and it's Duke whom Chandler actively mistreats in the group, and receives no such audience sympathy.
    • There are a few people who prop up Heather Chandler as an attractive badass and even ship her with Veronica, despite Chandler only befriending her for her forgery skills, ditching her as soon as she objects to her bullying Martha, and threatening Veronica for puking on her. You also get people who think Duke started picking on McNamara because Chandler "isn't around to protect her anymore", even though there's no sign Chandler was protecting McNamara and in fact Duke and McNamara were the friendliest of the group to each other until Chandler died and Duke grabbed the Alpha Bitch role first.
    • You'll find no shortage of YouTube comments talking about how cute and funny Kurt and Ram are, despite them being sexist and homophobic morons who harass less popular students, spread rumors about Veronica, and attempt date rape on three different people.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
    • To a lesser extent, Ben aka "Flannel Guy", due to being a Large Ham extra. He's considered one of the show's highlights.
    • For not really being a part of the main cast, Ms. Fleming has a fanbase for averting Adults Are Useless, being one of the few characters to actually stand up against the Heathers and caring about the students enough to help them with their grief after the faked suicides. The "Illegal" version of her especially, given how she's one of the few decent performances in the show, alongside Heather Chandler and J.D..
    • On a Meta level; when people talk about the "Illegal Heathers" production, most agree that Heather Chandler's actress is the only person in said production who seems to be trying whatsoever, or demonstrate any level of talent.
  • Fandom Rivalry:
  • Fandom-Specific Plot:
    • This fandom is fond of "Groundhog Day" Loop fics, in which Veronica is forced to relive the events of the show over and over again until she can manage to save (depending on the story) either everyone that dies or just whoever her love interest happens to be.
    • Another common supernatural spin on the story is that the apparitions of JD's victims that appear to Veronica periodically are their actual ghosts rather than just hallucinations, sometimes but not always with romantic developments between Veronica and the shade of Heather C.
    • There are also numerous Lighter and Softer takes on the story, which while retaining significant conflict usually don't escalate to literal lives being at stake. Often one of the main plot threads is Veronica attempting to keep the peace between the Heathers and the un-popular kids due to being in the unenviable position of being friends with both.
  • Fanon:
    • J.D.'s mother's name tends to be either Sally or Megan in fanfic. Though what her maiden name was is still debated.
    • Despite the hamster not appearing in the stage musical, most fans of the show tend to agree that Slushie the hamster is still canon. (See the film section above.) Probably because it'd actually be more in character for Musical!J.D. to own one.
    • Veronica being bisexual, either casually or coming out after the events of the musical is very popular. This tends to be the end result of taking the Les Yay in both versions at face value and her kiss with Heather Duke in the movie. It also makes post-musical shipping easier among the surviving cast.
    • More often than not, Veronica's hallucinations tend to be written as actual ghosts in fanfic that only she can see.
    • Heather McNamara is often portrayed as being somewhere on the autism spectrum, or otherwise neurodivergent.
    • Either Duke or McNamara is portrayed as being overweight in fanart (Galactibun◊ for Duke, MissyAsylum and Sangled for Mac). Though on the flipside it's also popular to portray Heather Duke being the skinniest of the Heathers, due to both her bulimic tendencies and her later meanness.
    • In fanart, Duke is the most common of the three Heathers to be portrayed as a Token Minority, probably due to her most well known portrayers being women of color, although there isn't a specific race that anyone can really agree on her being.
    • In modern AU fics showcasing text messages between the Heathers and Veronica, their usernames are based on their color code.
  • Fountain of Memes: Every other line that comes out of Heather Chandler's mouth or Veronica's diary is extremely quotable.
  • Friendly Fandoms:
    • Heathers fans get along well with those of many other well-received musicals of the late '10s, including Hamilton, Be More Chill, and in particular Dear Evan Hansen.
    • While Heathers and Mean Girls have a bit of a Fandom Rivalry, they also have a lot of fandom crossover, due in no small part to Barrett Wilburt Weed featuring in the original cast of both.
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff: In the United States, the musical as of this edit has been strictly Off Broadway. The 2018 London version started as Off West End and became one of the most popular shows at its theater ever, before moving to a proper run on the West End. Rather impressive, given its Cult Classic status.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: Heather Duke's jab at Veronica's weight in Beautiful becomes this when Carrie Hope Fletcher, Veronica's actress in the The West End production of Heathers, reveals that she was harassed online for being "fat". Fortunately, Carrie knows she's at a healthy body weight and she and her fans rightfully called out these trolls.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Hollywood Pudgy: Veronica is told to lose a few pounds by Heather Duke. None of her actresses are overweight and Carrie Hope Fletcher is the only one somewhat close to being chubby. Most likely intentional since Duke has an eating disorder.
  • Idiosyncratic Ship Naming:
  • Jerkass Woobie: J.D. has a horrible past that can genuinely make him sympathetic; he's also a serial killer who constantly ropes his girlfriend into his schemes despite her visible discomfort. Veronica tries pointing this out to him in "I Say No", but he's just too insane to listen to her.
  • Jerks Are Worse Than Villains:
    • Heather Duke, Kurt Kelly, Ram Sweeney, and the various useless authority figures are all far more disliked than the actual villain, J.D. — who is an actual Serial Killer — mainly because they lack his charisma and tragic backstory. By contrast, Heather Duke is a Beta Bitch who taunts her friend's suicidal feelings, and Kurt and Ram are Jerk Jocks and attempted rapists...which explains why many fans aren't very sympathetic when J.D. targets them.
    • In contrast, the Alpha Bitch Heather Chandler averts this trope — she is very popular, despite being at least as bad as Duke in most ways, mostly through sheer force of Crosses the Line Twice and Awesome Ego.
  • Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Veronica gets shipped with absolutely everyone. Aside from J.D, it tends to be with the rest of the female characters.
  • LGBT Fanbase: The musical has a large sapphic following, probably due in part to the show's feminist themes and large female cast, usually with a tendency towards Les Yay depending on the production. Was brought up to eleven in a recent UC Berkeley production that cast a female J.D. to play against Veronica.
  • Les Yay: At the end of the show, Veronica asks Martha "are you free tonight?", the same line she said to JD. It's a gesture of friendship and is platonic, but Martha's somewhat surprised expression makes it look like she thought it was a pickup line.
  • Love to Hate: Heather Chandler is an obnoxious, snooty, unsympathetic Asshole Victim, but she sells the queen bee image so damn well she steals every scene she's in. "Candy Store" is perhaps the most popular song in the show.
  • Magnificent Bastard (2022 filmed stage version): Jason "JD" Dean is a teenage rebel with a desire to "fix" Westerburg High School. Wooing Veronica Sawyer with his smooth attitude, JD lets Veronica inadvertently kill Heather Chandler with drain cleaner, then influences her to write a fake suicide note. When Veronica is tormented by the cruel jocks Kurt and Ram, JD immediately devises a scheme and manipulates Veronica into helping him kill the pair. JD soon punishes Heather Duke for nearly driving Heather MacNamara to suicide by blackmailing her. When Veronica finally abandons him due to his murderous ways, JD manipulates everyone in the school to signing a fake suicide note and vows to destroy the entire school to try and win Veronica back. When foiled by Veronica, a JD saves both Veronica and the school from his own bomb, admitting he doesn't understand why Veronica wants to save the students but that she nonetheless won and deserves to live before admitting he still loves Veronica and asking her to make things better in a more moral way.
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • Among fans: "SHUT UP, HEATHER!"
    • The show closing: "I love my dead gay show!"
    • "Fuck me gently with a chainsaw!"
    • Barret Wilbert Weed's Signature Laugh.
    • "My teenage angst bullshit has a body count."
    • "Are we gonna have a problem? You got a bone to pick? You've come so far. Why now are you pulling on my dick?"
    • Veronica's entire monologue during "Beautiful," explaining who the Heathers are.
    • "Illegal Heathers." In 2016, someone found a bootleg of an almost hilariously bad high school version of the show (that was, in all likelihood, illegal and unauthorized). Notorious for having an awkward mix of dialogue from both the musical and movie, the leads having no chemistry, cutting almost all the songs, and other such cringe-worthy things, the fandom delights in mocking it. YMMV if this is why a "high school edition" was made.
    • The choir singing "holy shit!" nine times at the start of "Fight for Me". Tends to be used when describing the anxiety before a test, or something disproportionately mundane.
    • Jokes about J.D not being able to count to three, thanks to him getting impatient ("ONE, TWO- FUCK IT!") during "Meant To Be Yours."
    • "What's Your Damage?"
    • "Heather Schneider" is a hoax character originating in the musical's massive TikTok fandom who is used to mock fans who take changes in adapted works way too seriously (in Heathers or in anything). She is supposedly the "fourth Heather" who only appears in the (actually nonexistent) original book that the film was adapted from, and who was cut for time from all subsequent versions. How the joke typically works is that someone will post an over-the-top rant about the cutting of Heather Schneider, and see if anyone else joins in, which will of course expose that person as having no idea what they're talking about because the film is the original version. Even if nobody takes the bait, it's still regarded as very funny in and of itself.
    • A clip of the West End version of "Meant To Be Yours" note  went viral on TikTok with people commenting on how likely they were to open the door.
  • Memetic Psychopath: J.D.'s murderous tendencies are often exaggerated and played for Black Comedy by the fandom, similar to Carl from Llamas with Hats.
  • Misaimed Fandom:
    • Obviously, there's still one for JD. If anything, it's more pronounced in the musical's fandom, since the show played up his sympathetic qualities more.
    • Kurt/Ram is one of the most popular ships in the show...despite the fact that them being gay lovers was a lie made up by JD to make their "suicide" look more convincing.
  • Moral Event Horizon: JD crosses it when he builds a bomb to blow up the entire school during senior prom, throwing away any previous semblance of good intentions and simply endeavoring to murder as many people as he possibly can.
  • Most Wonderful Sound:
    • Barret Wilbert Weed's version of Veronica's laugh, which is adorably awkward. It helps that it's so infectious.
    • The guitar riff at the end of "Our Love is God".
  • Narm: In the original off-Broadway production, J.D.'s voice strongly resembles Kermit the Frog whenever he sings higher notes. This can bring cartoonish hilarity to otherwise grim and/or emotional songs like the end of "Our Love is God" and "Seventeen."
  • Narm Charm: Many songs run on this. For example, "Seventeen" is about mundane things like watching bad movies and eating chili fries. "Kindergarten Boyfriend" is Exactly What It Says on the Tin. They should be hard to take seriously, but due to beautiful music and sincere acting, they're both genuine tear jerkers.
  • No Yay: Most fans don't ship Kurt and Ram with anyone, since they attempt to rape Veronica, Heather Duke, and Heather McNamara, and bully J.D. and Martha. (The fact that Martha has a crush on Ram only makes it worse, though notably it's always Kurt who picks on Martha, not Ram.) They obey Heather Chandler, but most fans agree they're beneath her. Shipping them with each other, however, is apparently fair game, even though it's actually only framed as a joke about 80s attitudes towards homosexuality in the musical.
  • One True Threesome: Foursome, rather - Veronica/all three Heathers is predictably rather popular, and has spawned a very long-running Alternate Universe Fic on tumblr and Archive of Our Own.
    • Veronica/Martha/Heather M isn't unheard of, especially thanks to "Seventeen (Reprise)".
  • Portmanteau Couple Name:
  • Retroactive Recognition:
  • Ship Mates: Veronica/Heather C. and Heather D./Heather M. are frequently found together.
  • Ships That Pass in the Night: There's a surprising following for J.D./Heather McNamara, especially in the roleplay community, despite him never speaking to her in canon. J.D being willing to kill Heather Duke for nearly driving McNamara to suicide might have something to do with it, since the only person he was murdering before then were people who harassed Veronica.
  • Ship-to-Ship Combat: J.D./Veronica versus... Veronica/anyone else. (By contrast, the fans of J.D./Veronica and J.D./anyone else tend to be at least civil.)
  • Signature Song: "Candy Store"
  • So Bad, It's Good: The "Illegal Heathers" production is notorious for not just embodying the worst parts of a high school musical, but also changing so much of the source material that it would most likely be illegal even if it had been authorized.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: While not a major problem among fans, some have taken issue with Heather Chandler and Heather Duke's portrayal in the musical. While they were respectively an Alpha Bitch and Beta Bitch in the movie, they also had Hidden Depths, with the former suffering peer pressure into giving a college boy a blowjob and the latter starting off as a sympathetic Shrinking Violet suffering from an eating disorder. In the musical, Chandler is a straight up Alpha Bitch with no Hidden Depths, with Duke just as mean or possibly even worse and her eating disorder played as a joke at her expense.
  • Took the Bad Film Seriously: It's generally agreed that, as hilarible as "Illegal Heathers" is, the actresses playing Heather Chandler and Ms. Fleming gave genuinely good performances. The former in particular has become very popular; look at the comments section of any video featuring the performance and you'll see people saying she carried the entire show.
  • What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Some people apparently thought that, since it's about high schoolers, it would make a good high school play. And it might, if you don't mind the explicit on-stage murders, the multiple suicide attempts, the sex scene in "Dead Girl Walking", the sexually explicit language, the antagonist plotting to blow up a school...
    • There actually is an edited version that can be licensed for high school performances.
  • The Woobie:
    • Veronica, for everything first that Heather Chandler, and then J.D., put her through. At first, she seems to have achieved her goal of becoming one of the popular girls, only to discover shortly after that it also requires her becoming an Alpha Bitch and dealing with the harassment they take. Then she falls in with a psychotic boyfriend who is obsessed with protecting her to the point of being a Yandere, plus she gets Slut-Shaming from the people who are supposed to be her friends and narrowly sexually assaulted by Kurt and Ram.
    • Martha "Dumptruck," for being constantly bullied, abandoned and screwed over by her only friend, and eventually attempting suicide. Not to mention being in unrequited love with Ram, which is used as a subject of ridicule people constantly bring up to embarrass him and laugh at Martha.
    • Heather McNamara, who, even amongst the Heathers, clearly suffers a great deal, especially after her suicide attempt, though she can skirt Jerkass Woobie when you remember she was a willing participant in the bullying of both Veronica and Martha.

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