Nicky Anais Little is a supporting character in the animated series Pepper Ann. She is the timid intellectual best friend of Pepper Ann Pearson and Milo Kamalani and attends Hazelnut Middle School with them.
Background
Nicky Little is a shy girl who lives with her parents and strives to be the best intellectually. She acts as Pepper Ann's voice of reason and tries to get through to her whenever she has an outlandish plan. A running gag is that she will try to instill the lesson into Pepper Ann, only for her to turn around and try to teach it to Nicky. She cares very much for her friend and tries to make sure she does not hurt herself.
Nicky's primary goal throughout the series has been to achieve the highest marks in school and try to be as perfect as possible. This would, ironically, lead her to doing unnatural, immature and somewhat immoral things to get what she wants and not accept responsibility for her actions. Besides her parents putting pressure on her, she also tries to top her sister Becky for attention and admiration. It is later revealed that she feels the same about her and bond over their shared fear of swans, implied to be due to a traumitizing childhood toy.
She has a recurring relationship with Stuart Walldinger, a well-meaning, albeit pretentious and geeky boy. Their interactions are portrayed as being mutually pleasant, but are often hindered by their differing interests or from outside forces; usually coming from Pepper Ann. They will get into arguments that result in them "nearly" breaking up, but getting brought back together again. Nicky has shown interest in other boys (namely Joaquin Samchez, along with having a crush on Craig Bean, which she does a poor job of hiding).
In "The Finale", it is established that in the series' version of 2013, Nicky grows up to become a successful reporter and is supposedly in a relationship with someone named Kevin. Having split from Stuart since high school, she fails to remember him and is put off by his insistence of having been in her life at one point (especially with the implication that he had a bad run-in with her current boyfriend which ended with Kevin indisposed).
Personality
Nicky is considered an opinionated, goal-oriented, perfectionist, and a determined person who usually keeps to the straight and narrow. Her family places a lot of emphasis on personal achievements, intellectualism, as well as academic and career success. This had an influence on the personality of Nicky and her sister, Becky who went on to become an often boastful triple-major at Harvard. Within the household dynamic, she often had an unspoken competitive relationship with Nicky for recognition and admiration of the often particular family. Her parents are often supportive but encourage her to go the extra mile and reward achievement and success the most directly, disallowing outbursts in the house outside of certain circumstances. Even though she tends to be independent, and is seen as overly aloof and pleasant, she will often lose her temper and have sensitive outbursts when faced with a certain level of disorganization, chaos, or disagreement. She is very conflict avoidant, and wants to avoid dysfunction in her relationships especially with Pepper Ann and Milo. She demonstrates some level of self-awareness and is well read for someone her age, however lacks social intelligence and is prone to moments of obliviousness and inattention. This often leads to secretive rivalries with academics who are often more open and proud of their achievements, while Nicky attempts to remain humble and under the radar whilst aiming for high achievement. Though an over achiever largely due to competing with Becky and her implied family dynamic, for a majority of her childhood Nicky was shown to not like receiving mass attention from people outside her direct community and outside of showing her musical talents. It is implied that before the events of the show, she was more of a reactive and sensitive child though was able to mellow out as she matured.
Her knowledge is often described as "encyclopedic" by the other characters, and she is implied to have a strong intellectual memory, having a strong vocabulary for a seventh grader. Nicky hates to be labeled as a perfect person as she often feels like she is obligated to work for others who don't put in as much as an effort. However, she is still perceived as lacking common flaws and having exceptional talent and is often labeled by "perfect" or "amazing" to the point of often being seen as trying too hard. However, is true that Nicky has developed what is considered a level of exceptional talent for her age group, and she often tries to embrace it in her own way. For instance, she might use the word "amazing" to apply to herself but has a hard time receiving strongly worded compliments that put a lot of emphasis on her own contributions despite being generally ambitious. One of the most comforting intellectual past-times for her is reading books by authors, such as Jane Eyre, and finds reading and sorting books a relaxing and grounding experience when other skills and hobbies require her to exert herself more. Despite having strong academic success, she is often just considered "book smart" by other characters and a a goody-two-shoes to the point that it is often detrimental to her school social life outside of her main friendship with Milo and Pepper Ann.
She often misunderstands slang words and is intimidated by eighth graders, and some of her scheduled activities and hobbies outside of casually socializing and hanging out are often seen as boring, snobby, and pointless. Nicky often has complex specific and strongly held opinions about various subjects such as entertainment, comedy, and the arts. She admires when others try to put effort or make attempts to understand and do research on the subjects she likes or participates in, such as classical music. If other people are more openly judgemental of her interests, Nicky might become critical of their hobbies and defensive of her own interests and skills. Because of Nicky's upbringing and personality, Nicky often projects her own traits such as personal desires or wishes onto other people and tends to make assumptions on what is "morally correct" to the point people often expect lectures from her. When offering advice to other people, she often cites what she believes are facts and trusted sources, though sometimes her personal bias is obvious. She is also shown to have some signs of black and white thinking and entitlement in these situations, even putting people down in a passive-aggressive or overt way when she views something as morally or generally questionable.
Unlike Pepper Ann, Nicky has a lot of strongly held beliefs and trust in certain social institutions like academia, health and diet practitioners, law, and adult authority figures such as parents, the elderly, and teachers. Therefore, she often thinks in absolutes which can lead to tension, misunderstanding, and disagreements. It also can often lead to physical disgust, strong reactions, and a strong sense of resentment towards certain behavior, crimes like vandalism or perceived unprofessional behavior from teachers or the school district. Unless she feels like there are no other options but a last resort, she will often try to solve conflicts in the most "appropriate" way to varying levels of success. However, sometimes when something goes wrong with an authority figure or they disagree with her own feelings or opinions to the point an authoritative boundary is set, she will try to disobey them in secret to have her way. This can be seen when she secretly participated in trick-or-treating on Halloween despite her parents' dietary beliefs by wearing a full body costume or attempting to remove a detention on her permanent record so she can get into Harvard by trespassing on school grounds. Sometimes, she feels she can't resist certain "indulgences" like sweets or other things even if she believes they are immoral, unhealthy, undisciplined, inhuman, or distasteful. Other times, she believes she needs to cave in and accept activities that are bad when she "gives in to them" such as when she breaks her imposed low-fat pescatarian diet. Though she might not always be self-absorbed, she struggles to self-advocate and wants to be seen as a selfless person often to her detriment with her desire for an unattainable perfectionism and can be very judgemental, contradicting, harsh, secretive and self-centered. Overall, this leads her to being perceived in disagreements as an imposing know-it-all who always assumes her opinions are correct even when her intention is to be seen as honest and well mannered, which often backfires. She often puts a lot of stake in the future and her success in adulthood despite also seemingly want to live in the present, hoping not to end up in a negative or unfortunate state in the future.
Nicky is also seen putting a lot of emphasis on charity and is often assuming others care about charitable causes such as working at soup kitchens and volunteering just as her. However, she often views these activities as inherently difficult and self-sacrificial leading to her wanting the charity she gives to others and her often being similarly self-centered, entitled, and disinterested as the people she judges for not being charitable. Sometimes, based on how she views others, she assumes they share an intellectual or empathetic common ground and would be more open to her interests such as with Trinket and Stuart. Though often critical, policing, lacking a filter, and self-contradicting, Nicky often has balance and structure and tends to maintain a very friendly and positive disposition. Believing herself to hold a caring and thoughtful attitude, she is more likely to offer assistance to problems than to make impulsive decisions and wants to be seen as a helpful and thoughtful individual. Despite being seen as overly formal and conscientious, she typically loves a break from the mundane and isn't against hanging out at typical preteen hangout spots such as arcades as long as she brings something to occupy herself with. She often adds a sense of curiosity and level headed thought to Pepper Ann's out-of-the box and scattered thinking, though also going along with poorly conceived plans enjoying the uniqueness of the adventure that often occurs when she can't stop Pepper Ann from doing something she believes is wrong. Pepper Ann and Nicky also have some similar traits of impulsivity, shared insecurities about themselves, as well as ethical values and a strong protective relationship. They are often looking out for each other despite their differences in thinking and approach to life, naiveties about the world, and often not finding obvious commonalities with each other. Though she is often inconspicuously private and therefore isn't as open about many aspects of her life than she appears to be, she can let her guard down occasionally and has plenty of admiration of both her friends' unique personalities, creativity, and passion- resulting in an openness to breaking the status quo, lighthearted banter, and the impression of a strong bond between the three friends when they are all together.
Physical appearance
Nicky is a tall slender Caucasian girl with a sturdy figure. She has long, slightly pale bright blonde hair with a prominent cowlick and stylized strands. One of her bangs is always covering one of her eyes and her ears stick out prominently like horns. It is shown that her hair is naturally wavy, with Nicky brushing it to be straight; this most often seen whenever she becomes disheveled. Nicky wears her natural hair casually during her stint as Nic'kay and her early years in kindergarten. In her everyday outfit, she wears a long sleeved mint blue-green sweater and pleated red skirt while a blue, azure sweater is tied around her waist. She wears brown dress shoes and white socks.
Trivia
- Nicky's hairstyle seems to cover one side of her eyes (typically her frontmost eye), whenever she turns her head. In some frames where her hair moves both eyes are visible, such as when her hair blows in the wind in "The Environ-Mentals".
- She, along with her sister, Becky, has a fear of swans. This is implied to be from a character named Swanee, with the reasoning repressed deep in their memories.
- In "The Way They Were" used to be a bully in childhood, and was labeled "the brawn" whilst Becky was "the brain".
- In "Dances with Ignorance", Nicky states that her family's roots trace to British origin.
- In "Guess Who's Coming to the Theater", Nicky stated that she has not eaten meat for six years; outside of fish, as she maintains a consistent lunch diet of grilled ahi, steamed carrots, and chai tea. According to certain episodes such as "You Oughta Be In Musicals!", the reasoning seems to be to maintain good nutrition compared to the average meal at Hazelnut Middle School or typical lunch.
- Nicky is established to be physically strong, despite being athletically challenged when it comes to sports.
- Despite eating fish, "Nicky Gone Bad" implies she doesn't like fried fish such as those in the fish sandwiches at the cafeteria.
- In early episodes, Nicky often took more of a supporting role and was less involved with the conflict of the plot. Often, plots of Milo and her own were not intertwined or related. She would be a more involved presence in later episodes.
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