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Lady Parts
In General
A four-piece all-girl all-Muslim punk-rock band.
- All Muslims Are Arab: Averted. Ayesha is of Iraqi descent, but Bisma is black, Amina and Saira are South Asian, while Momtaz's ethnicity is unknown.note
Amina
Amina Hussain
Portrayed By: Anjana Vasan
A newcomer to the band, recruited to play lead guitar despite her crushing stage fright and unfamiliarity with punk music. Also a microbiology doctoral candidate.
- Asian and Nerdy: South Asian, microbiology doctoral candidate, and overall dorky to boot.
- Endearingly Dorky: Even before developing feelings for her, Ahsan finds her dorkiness charming.
- Performance Anxiety: A longtime problem for her. She usually freezes in front of crowds and then suffers from vomiting and diarrhea if she tries to power through and perform.
- Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Played with. She longs to get married and gets set up with a lot of men in her quest to find a husband, but the only one she develops romantic feelings for is the kind and thoughtful Ahsan. However, what initially attracts her to Ahsan is his good looks, and she doesn't get to know him as a person until after the two of them have agreed to be Just Friends.
Saira
Saira Sherwani
Portrayed By: Sarah Kameela Impey
The band's founder, leader, main singer, and rhythm guitarist.
- Broken Bird: Emotionally unavailable and carrying grief and guilt due to the death of her elder sister and her subsequent estrangement from her family.
- Commitment Issues: Is reluctant to call Abdullah her boyfriend even after six months.
- High-School Hustler: Got expelled from primary school for selling school furniture.
- The Lad-ette: Short hair, ripped jeans, and an overall hard-edged disposition.
- Master of the Mixed Message: Abdullah wants the two of them to be an official couple, but she avoids giving him a clear answer due to her Commitment Issues. Ayesha calling her out on this is what gets her to finally agree to make things official.
- The Pig-Pen: Her boss at the butcher's shop complains of her lack of hygiene. She can be seen chopping meat then stopping without washing her hands to write song lyrics.
Ayesha
Ayesha Alkaaf
Portrayed By: Juliette Motamed
The band's drummer.
- Ambiguously Bi: So far she's only shown interest in Zarina, but Amina uses gender-neutral language to talk about how Ayesha acts when she has a crush, and Zarina refers to her as queer rather than lesbian. However, given Ayesha's guarded personality and implied Gayngst, it's possible that this means Amina and Zarina don't know Ayesha's sexuality besides the fact that she likes women.
- Everyone Has Standards: She finds it distasteful when Saira urges Ahsan to lead Amina on for a little bit, believing that no one deserves to have their emotions toyed with.
- Gayngst: Downplayed. When Zarina probes her about her identity as a queer Muslim woman, Ayesha uncomfortably asks if they could not talk about that, implying that it's a sore spot.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Quick to anger, like when Amina criticizes her lyrics.
- Love Makes You Dumb: Her wits go out the window when she meets Zarina.
- Sugar-and-Ice Personality: She's cold, stoic, and even rude much of the time, but shows a warmer side when she's excited or crushing on someone.
Bisma
Bisma
Portrayed By: Faith Omole
The band's bass player and an aspiring comic-book artist.
- Granola Girl: Downplayed. She's much mellower and more into Zen and vegan food than her bandmates, but her weed smoking, feminist sensibilities, and leftist politics are shared by the rest of the band.
- Happily Married: She's the one member of the band who's in a fulfilling relationship, with a supportive husband and a loving daughter.
- Hippie Parents: Described by Amina as an "Earth Mother and actual mother."
- Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: She draws a comic book that's supposed to help young women feel empowered by their periods, but the artwork is so disturbing that the target audience rejects her work.
Momtaz
Momtaz
Portrayed By: Lucie Shorthouse
The band's manager.
- The Faceless: Wears a niqab, even when it is just the girls. When we see her at home, the camera is framed tightly around her eyes.
- Happiness in Minimum Wage: She works as a clerk in a lingerie shop and seems to enjoy it, in contrast to Saira, Bisma, and Ayesha's more negative attitudes towards their jobs.
- Out of Focus: Comparatively. The show doesn't get into any issues surrounding her personal life or family situation.
- Perky Goth: Accessorizes her black niqabs with fingerless gloves, leather jackets, black nail polish, and studded or spiked bracelets, and has a very cheerful personality.
- Shrouded in Myth: No one knows much about her past, with rumors that she's divorced from some sheikh, or that she did time for arson.
Others
Ahsan
Ahsan Alkaaf
Portrayed By: Zaqi Ismail
Ayesha's brother and an anthropology masters' candidate at Amina's university.
- Nerds Are Sexy: His intelligence is one of the many things Amina finds attractive about him.
- Unrequited Love Switcheroo: After their first date, he tells the smitten Amina that he only likes her as a friend. As they spend more time together, he starts to develop feelings for her, but she's too focused on the band to notice.
Noor
Noor
Portrayed By: Aiysha Hart
Amina's childhood best friend and fellow grad student who recently got engaged.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Her courteous, friendly demeanor masks a very judgmental and self-absorbed personality.
- Childhood Friends: She and Amina have been best friends since they were children.
- Foil: To Lady Parts as a whole. The band members are free-spirited punks who celebrate self-expression and flaunt rules, while Noor is prim and conservative. The contrast between them represents Amina's own contrasting desires.
- Holier Than Thou: She has a very defined idea of what constitutes proper behavior for Muslim women and is utterly convinced of her own moral purity. When her friends commit what she regards as sinful behavior, she responds with judgment and passive aggression.
- It's All About Me: Noor tends to ride roughshod over Amina and generally treats Amina like a supporting character in her story.
- Pet the Dog: There are a few moments that show she really does care for Amina in her own way:
- When she thinks Ahsan has led Amina on and dumped her, she verbally tears him a new one.
- Despite thinking Lady Parts are a disgrace, she wishes Amina good luck before their first show.
Zarina
Zarina Zee
Portrayed By: Sofia Barclay
An influencer-turned-clickbait-journalist who decides to write a feature on Lady Parts for the online magazine Yellow Tongue.
- Bad Influencer: A stereotypical shallow, manipulative influencer who claims to uplift other women of color while actually using them for her own gain.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Initially seems friendly and even starts dating Ayesha, but shows her true colors as she manipulates the band's image and misrepresents their beliefs just to get more eyes on her article, with no regard for how it affects the band members.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Momtaz acknowledges that Zarina angling her article to get the biggest audience possible did indeed help the band reach new fans, even if they were drowned out by the backlash at first.
- Never My Fault: Refuses to admit any wrongdoing when Lady Parts confront her over her misleading portrait of the band, insisting that she was only trying to get them an audience.
- Wants a Prize for Basic Decency: Says that the band shouldn't be mad at her about the article since she complied with Ayesha's request not to mention her sexuality. Apparently in Zarina's world, not outing her own girlfriend on a website with millions of readers is praiseworthy.
Abdullah
Abdullah
Portrayed By: David Avery
Saira's boyfriend.
- Am I Just a Toy to You?: He feels that he's a lot more serious about Saira than she is about him.
- Career Versus Man: Discussed with Wasim and Bisma. Wasim encourages him to move on from Saira because she's too focused on the band to care about him. Bisma promptly calls the two of them out for suggesting that a woman prioritizing her career over her man is a bad thing.
