Character page for I Am Not Okay With This.
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Sydney "Syd" Novak
Played by: Sophia Lillis
The protagonist of the show — a snarky, angry teenager with Psychoactive Powers.
- Accidental Murder:
- While having one of her episodes, she accidentally kills Liam's pet hedgehog, Banana. She's plenty remorseful about it, despite not being personally attached to it, and feels guilt for the sadness it causes her brother.
- At the end of Season 1, Brad proceeds to humiliate her at homecoming by taking a microphone and exposing all her secrets to the school - outing her feelings for Dina, making fun of her family problems, and is on the verge of exposing her secret powers. Stressed and just wanting him to stop, she accidentally causes his head to violently explode. Again, she feels awful for killing him when all she wanted him to do was just to stop talking.
- Affectionate Nickname: Sydney is usually called "Syd" by her family and friends.
- Berserk Button: Don't insult her family. Especially her dad. While theorizing that emotional triggers cause her powers to activate, Stanley tests this theory by insulting her looks and grades. When this doesn't work, he moves onto a more sensitive topic—her father's suicide. Syd promptly responds by sending two bowling balls flying at his head.
- Big Sister Instinct: She's very protective of Liam, to the point where she attempts to use her powers on a kid who's bullying him at school. Unfortunately, it doesn't work.
- Blessed with Suck: She has telekinetic powers, but due to the issues that come with being a teenager—such as a favorite parent killing themselves, having to step up in the household, high school drama, budding sexuality, and so on—it leaves her prone to anxiety attacks and other problems, which end up being the source of her losing control of said powers and causing unintentional dangerous and large-scale destruction. Stan thinks it's totally cool and tries to talk to her about it, but she would rather not.
- Blood-Splattered Wedding Dress: Well, prom dress, but the point still stands. Brad's blood splatters all over her after she accidentally blows up his head. Her resulting appearance is comparable to Stephen King's Carrie.
- Boyish Short Hair: Courtesy of her actress, Syd has short, wavy red hair. In one brief scene in the first episode, she's shown clipping the front even shorter.
- Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Inverted with her and Stan. Stan's more open and cheerful, while Syd, even on her good days, tends to keep to herself a lot.
- Butch Lesbian: A downplayed example - she isn't particularly athletic, but has short curly hair and boyish attire usually (she puts on a dress to attend prom, but it looks out of place on her). While she has had sex with Stan, she notes that something was 'missing' from it and figures out just what it was when she kisses Dina. Her diary seems to be explicit about her lesbianism as well if Brad is to be believed-apparently in there she went on at great length about Dina and her feelings for her.
- Conditional Powers: Her powers only seem to work when she's angry or highly emotional.
- Deadpan Snarker: She's this from the first line in the series.Syd: Dear Diary—go fuck yourself.
- Driven to Suicide: At the end of the comic storyline, she kills herself after she sees Dina mourning Brad at his funeral. She comes to believe that she's too dangerous and horrible of a person to stay alive. This is not the case at the end of the first season.
- Fiery Redhead: She's red-haired and very short-tempered.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Syd has an anger problem as a result of her dad's death, and is getting counseling for it. Her starting a diary is recommended as part of her anger management therapy so she can express her feelings that way. It results in her accidentally killing her brother's pet, and then Brad, when she lost control of her telekinesis.
- Heroic BSoD: At the end of Season 1, after accidentally killing Brad in front of the whole school, she flees to the tower at the edge of town and seems completely unsure how to move forward until a strange man shows up.
- I Am a Monster: She views herself as one for accidentally causing destruction with her powers, even though she doesn't mean to at all. In the comic, she comes to believe that she's gone too far when she realizes she hurt Dina by killing Brad, leading to her becoming Driven to Suicide.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: She's not happy at all about her powers and only wishes to be a normal teenager.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She's far from the nicest person, but she does genuinely care about her friends and family.
- Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex: In the comics, it's explicitly stated that Syd can't have sex or masturbate as it causes her to lose control of her powers. The show implies otherwise, considering nothing is made out of it after she sleeps with Stanley.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Syd is usually called this rather than her full name of Sydney.
- Power Incontinence: Syd has the power of telekinesis, but it only ever activates when she's in emotional distress such as anger or sadness. As such, it often gives her even more trouble than a situation advantage.
- Properly Paranoid: Throughout Season 1, she believes that someone is following her, but it's not clear if this is just paranoia or if someone really is after her. The final scene of the season reveals that she's right.
- Prone to Vomiting: In the comic, she tends to run off to throw up from panic after using her powers.
- Psychoactive Powers: She has telekinetic powers that are caused when her emotions—such as anger or fear—are heightened.
- Self-Harm: Near the end of the comic, she accidentally explodes the tip of her finger. It's foreshadowing that she can use her powers on herself, leading to her killing herself by blowing up her own head.
- She Cleans Up Nicely: Syd doesn't usually care much about her looks, but puts on makeup and a nice dress for the dance (though she's hardly bad-looking to begin with). Dina compliments her on it.
- Suicide Note: At the end of the comic, she leaves her comic behind as something for her family to find.
- Tomboy with a Girly Streak: Syd is a short-haired lesbian girl who doesn't really care about stereotypically feminine things, though she's not averse to them either, dolling herself up for the school dance.
- Tomboyish Name: Syd, whose full name Sydney is a Gender-Blender Name to begin with, usually gets called this. It fits since she's a tomboy lesbian.
- Your Head Asplode:
- How she kills herself at the end of the comic.
- She accidentally kills Brad this way in the show.
Liam Novak
Played by: Aidan Wojtak-Hissong
Syd's younger brother, whom she's very fond of.
- A Boy and His X: Liam has a hedgehog called Banana. Unfortunately, Syd—in a moment of heightened distress—kills it by accident.
- Affectionate Nickname: Syd calls him "Goob."
- Annoying Younger Sibling: Heavily averted. He and Syd get along just fine, and she clearly dotes on him. It helps that he's very independent for a kid his age.
- Children Are Innocent: In the diner, Dina asks Syd whether or not Stan went down on her (to which she answers yes). Afterwards, Liam—who had been seated at the counter—innocently asks Sydney where Stan went.
- Lethal Chef: Averted. Even though he simply throws a bunch of random ingredients into a pot to make lasagna, Syd remarks that it still tastes good.
- Puppy Love: In the second to the last episode, he tries to ask out his schoolmate, Veronica Thompson.
Mrs. Novak
Played by: Kathleen Rose Perkins
Syd and Liam's mother.
- Parental Favoritism: It's quite obvious that Mrs. Novak prefers Liam over Syd, constantly telling her to feed him dinner, pick him up from school, and is generally quite nicer to him. However, Liam is the younger of the two, and doesn't give her as much trouble as Syd does.
- Parental Neglect: Zigzagged. At the start of the show, it's a straight example with her openly stating her dislike for Syd. Later on in the show, she reveals the reason she has Syd running the house is because she works 60-hour weeks to keep the family afloat. Another reason she's so upset with Syd is because Syd has always picked her father over her, even though he never left the bed after coming home from the war, and has been dead for over a year. Basically, she isn't ''that'' good of a parent, but it's quite clear that she loves Syd and Liam in her own way, and she even tells Syd that should she start feeling the same way her dad did before he committed suicide—symptoms that Syd can relate to, having recently acquired powers of her own—she can tell her mother about it anytime.
Mr. Novak
Syd and Liam's deceased father, who had killed himself before the events of the show.
- Disappeared Dad: He died before the show began.
- Driven to Suicide: He hung himself in the basement. Syd's mother reveals to her that he was always troubled by something, which was worsened by his PTSD from serving in the military.
- Like Parent, Like Child: As revealed in the episode, "Like Father Like Daughter". Like Syd, both were "distant" and were privately dealing with internal demons. Syd realizes from what her mother has to say about how he was in the past that he, too, had powers.
- Power Incontinence: This is implied to be the case for him.
- Sole Survivor: On his last tour, by some miracle (or curse?), he was caught in an explosion that killed everyone in the vicinity except for him. It's not clear if this was caused by his powers or he was protected by them, but it's quite obvious that they clearly had something to do with the event.
Stanley "Stan" Barber
Played by: Wyatt Oleff
Syd's neighbor and friend.
- Abusive Parents: Boy, did Stan's father hit the lottery with this. Throughout the show, he is shown to be physically, verbally, and emotionally abusive. To top it all off, he tends to leave Stan—his teenage son—alone in the house for long periods of time.
- Cloudcuckoolander: He tends to come off as rather spacey, especially when compared to the surly Syd.
- The Cloudcuckoolander Was Right: For all his misses when it comes to gauging Syd's powers, he's right that Syd may have gotten her powers from her parents.
- Conspiracy Theorist: He believes that super-powered mythological figures are based on real-life people that existed in history. He also believes that the world will be overtaken by jellyfish someday, which is why he wants to be one.
- Deadpan Snarker: Not nearly to the extent of Syd, but he does have his moments.
- Establishing Character Moment: In the first episode, he greets Syd quite cheerily while barefoot and asks if he can walk with her to her house. Afterward, he dances by himself in the middle of the road on his way back home.
- Innocently Insensitive:
- He calls Syd's powers cool and pushes her about it, oblivious that she's not a fan of it and would rather avoid talking about it.
- He states right in front of Syd that he wishes his dad would stay gone. He realizes his mistake almost immediately.
- Nice Guy: No matter how many times Syd pushes him away, Stan will always stick by her and be her friend. While it's partly because he likes her, he's also a genuinely nice person who understands that Syd is going through something and tries to be there for her as much as he can. Case in point, when Brad starts outing Syd to the entire school, Stan angrily tells him to leave Syd alone, knowing fully well that everything Brad says is a sore spot for Syd.
- Parental Neglect: His mom is implied to have left his family and his dad spends the small amount of time he is home drinking and watching football.
- The Pollyanna: He's generally upbeat despite all the problems in his home life.
- Prefers Going Barefoot: A subtler version of the trope. In his very first scene, Syd points to his bare feet, which he simply brushes off as "Shoes. Who needs them?"
- Rare Vehicles: His circa-1980 Ford Fairmont is equipped with (comically slow) power windows, an option that during its' production period was rarely ordered on what was meant to be a cheap compact car.
- Romantic False Lead: He and Syd never end up dating officially, though they do remain close friends.
- The Stoner: At least once an episode, Stan is shown to be smoking weed. He also deals weed, though this is more because of the fact that he needs extra income, what with his father being away all the time.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: As a comic book geek, he's convinced that Syd is going to be a real-life superhero and that he's The Mentor. Given that the story is about Syd dealing with her teen angst issues and that Charles Xavier probably doesn't exist, Stan is probably wrong. Possibly averted in the Season One finale with the implication that the shadow man will mentor Syd.
Dina
Played by: Sofia Bryant
- Ambiguously Bi: She dates Brad and later appears to be developing feelings for Syd.
- Cry for the Devil: An invoked version of the trope. Despite Brad cheating on her and her realizing that he's a big-time jerkass, she's still freaked out over his sudden, violent death and is last seen crying over his headless body.
- Nice Girl: She's nothing but sweet to Syd and Stan, and doesn't push her best friend away, even after Syd kisses her at a party.
- Pubescent Braces: Syd mentions in her narration that Dina used to have braces, but once she got them off, boys—including Brad—started noticing her more.
Brad
Played by: Richard Ellis
- For the Evulz: His whole reason to humilate Sydney is for his own sadistic amusement.
- Hate Sink: He's a rude, obnoxious bully who eventually humiliates Sydney in public because she told Dina that he cheated on her. He's also extremely violent and homophobic.
- Jerk Jock: He plays football, cheats on his girlfriend, and gets mad at her best friend for telling Dina, despite this being the right thing to do. He also steals Syd's diary and outs her to the whole school.
- Laser-Guided Karma: His assholery gets its comeuppance when Syd accidentally blows up his head from stress over him exposing her diary to the entire school. Appropriately enough, it happens just as he's about to mock her for the "crazy rambling" where she describes having Psychic Powers.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: He calls Sydney a “dyke” while he is humiliating her at the prom.
- Sadist: He has no other reason to psychologically torture Sydney for exposing him to Dina other than to satisfy himself.
- Your Head Asplode: Syd accidentally blows his head up at prom, splattering everyone and leaving his body lying in a pool of blood.
Jenny
Played by: Sophia Tatum
- Hate Sink: She's not terribly liked in-universe or out-of-universe for being a sardonic jerkass. The only person that likes her is fellow Hate Sink Brad, and even then.
- Hypocrite: She seduces Brad at a party and the two have sex. Shortly after, she labels Syd as a slut when she suggests that Syd may have had sex with multiple people.
- Slut-Shaming: Dryly accuses Syd of being a "slut" when she tries to make her and the others play "Fuck, Marry, Kill" after having just said that she's "unfuckable". Ironically, Brad cheats on Dina with her at the party a few days earlier.
