The Students (Nicole)
Nicole
"Bitch, please give me a fry!"
Voiced by: Elsie Lovelock
The Protagonist. Also a self-admitted sociopath who's given up on pretending to be nice after she was forced to transfer schools for the umpteenth time following her father's suicide. open/close all folders
A-L
- Abomination Accusation Attack: Frequently to her male classmates, especially Jeffery.
- Adaptation Dye-Job:
- Her hair is black in the game, while she's a brunette in the animated short.
- In Re-Up, Nicole's hair is both a lighter shade in the CG's and Jecka mentions that Nicole is a brunette, so this is specific to the first game and likely just a minor example of Early-Installment Weirdness.
- Aesop Amnesia:
- Played humorously. In the jail ending, Nicole reflects on the mistakes she made that got her to that point; Nicole recognizes that Jecka was trying to explain to her that her Evil Is Petty attitude wasn't doing her any favors, for example, and Nicole comes to understand that she had a major issue with never being able to admit that she was wrong about something. For one of the first times in the series, she even sounds happy about the idea she can make friends! She then ends the reflection by cheerily stating that the first thing she'll do once her sentence is up is buy a gun and then torture and kill Principal Lynn for snitching on her, demonstrating that while she might have learned about the joy of making friends, she's ultimately still as impulsive as ever.
- Broadly speaking, she outright invokes this. She doesn't want to learn anything from her actions because that would mean having less ways to entertain herself and more chances to feel even worse about herself.Nicole: "Lessons are for fat bitches who think pilates will make their husbands wanna have sex again."
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: She has a Celeb Crush on Marilyn Manson. When it comes to same-sex examples, Nicole seem to have a preference for women who share her questionable interests and can keep up with her "mean girl" attitude like Jecka and Emily. She does give Ari a chance to date her after finding out that Ari secretly engages in Self-Harm, but quickly grows bored with the relationship when Nicole finds that she and Ari have little in common. Nicole herself even states that she "only likes being treated like shit if you're creative about it."
- All Men Are Perverts: Nicole's main philosophy: She doesn't call it feminism though, but rather "Nicoleism". Unfortunately, her belief is proven correct more often than not.
- Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: How dark her hair is depends on the medium, but it's always either a very deep brown or outright black. Nicole is also not interested in any interaction with men whatsoever outside of situations where she can get something out of them and only ever tolerates women who interest her or can get her drugs, making her rather distant from people.
- Alpha Bitch: Although she is the New Transfer Student, Nicole is able to get a lot of attention due to her good looks. She does mention that she used to hang out with the popular crowds at her previous schools, and is currently the biggest Dude Magnet among the students. Of course, she is a manipulative sociopath who will ruin someone's life for the pettiest of reasons.
- Ambiguous Ending: A few endings in the first game such as the Rehab ending imply that Nicole is contemplating suicide, but it is never confirmed whether or not she goes through with it. Likewise, in several endings where Nicole ends up institutionalized or in prison, her life once she gets out is, at best, open-ended.
- Ambiguous Start of Darkness: Seeing the aftermath of her father's suicide and being blamed in the note he left behind is what began Nicole's downwards spiral into the person she is by the start of the game although there are some hints that there was something wrong with her well before then, most notably with her mother claiming she's been aware of the concept of sexual assault since at least the age of 12.
- Ambiguously Gay: Though which gender she flirts with is mostly down to personal convenience, there are hints that she legitimately swings towards girls:
- Unlike Jecka, she pretty much Does Not Like Men and isn't willing to even compliment their looks unless it's to specifically manipulate them. On the other hand, she's a lot more willing to compliment the looks of other girls (including Principal Lynn's when not at odds with her over how useless Lynn is as an authority figure) and doesn't sound averse to the idea of trying out being "sexed up abusive lesbians" with Jecka.
- Near the end of Emily's route, Nicole is openly flustered by the compliments Emily gives her during a sleepover, the two share Nicole's bed and Nicole even gives Emily a kiss goodnight upon her request (although draws the line at saying "I love you" back at Emily).
- At the end of Ari's route where they date, through Nicole's final monologue and Ari's text, it is confirmed that Nicole did have sex with Ari, whereas in most other routes Nicole does not intend to go all the way with the guys she could date and has to be constantly drugged up to do "upper" favors for men just to survive during the expulsion ending because she doesn't want to be sober enough to realize how much she's debasing herself.
- In a Twitter Q&A, she specifies that her ideal crush would be a girl she could abuse out of boredom. Unlike Ari, however, she doesn't seem to explicitly like girls so much as she hates men far more.
- Rather humorously, Nicole herself isn't entirely sure where she stands. In the animated short, she has to ask Jecka for help figuring out if it's gayer for wanting to date Emily or wanting her to have sex with Nicole's dead body. When Jecka says that dating a girl is gayer, Nicole bemoans that she's "still straight".Nicole: What is gayer, dating a girl or wanting a girl to have sex with your dead body?
Jecka: (A little disturbed and takes a second to think) Dating a girl?
Nicole: Still straight. (sighs) - While Nicole has stated that she hates the idea of marriage in general throughout the series, she is flabbergasted at the mere suggestion that she could have a future "husband" in Flip Side. When Jecka brought up the possibility of each of them getting a husband, Nicole initially thought Jecka wanted two husbands for herself. After Jecka clarified her statement, Nicole make it clear that marrying a guy is the last thing she wants.
- In Flip Side, Nicole would claim that she believes that every white girl is either "really gay or really racist, there's no inbetween." When Jecka asks what category they fall under, Nicole would respond with "to be determined." Considering that Nicole tends to Hates Everyone Equally, Nicole's own logic has her leaning to the former.
- Her Celeb Crush on Marilyn Manson is currently the only time Nicole explicitly states that she is attracted to a man. Although, Nicole's claims that Manson is "one man on Earth" that she wants be sexually abused by can be interpreted as either If It's You, It's Okay, that she is only interested in his fame and money, or just her usual sarcasm.
- Angst? What Angst?: A lot of characters in-universe show concern towards her ability to easily brush off incredibly traumatic events such as getting shot by a mall cop and nearly dying from blood loss and being accepted back into school after spending over a month of being homeless and forced to do sexual favors for men for money and drugs.
- Anti-Hero: At her best. She's a jackass, but Nicole is willing to confront people over being white nationalists and will use platforms to call out her school for being legitimately terrible with no real expectation of reward, even if she'll act caustic and openly bully Jeffery the whole time. Nicole also cares enough about Ari to save Ari from a group of homophobes, even if most of her reasoning comes down to 'if I don't save Ari's life, I'll be blamed for a hate crime I had nothing to do with.' It's severely downplayed though given that it's unlikely she does any of this out of having any actual moral principles rather than just knowing what is the most effective way to ruin the lives of people she dislikes.
- Anti-Role Model: How Jecka describes her in the Flip Side ending where Jeffery dies of an accidental overdose caused by Nicole. Nicole's tendency to take every bad choice to its logical conclusion basically gives Jecka an indicator of when she should back out.
- Asshole Victim: She is both on the receiving end of this trope as well as the person who often dishes it out to the other, more terrible characters in the game.
- Author Avatar: For SBN3, sharing much of his aggressive snark and bile, along with voicing his opinions regarding men and racism. Could also count as Self-Deprecation, considering just how many terrible choices she makes across all the games.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Zig-zagged with her mom. Nicole mostly hates her for being overbearing and being the reason she had to keep transferring schools, whereas her mom is largely frustrated by her antics and is shown to very abusive on her worst days, but she sounds legitimately horrified when her mom collapses from a heart attack and scrambles to call 911. However, post-funeral, Nicole doesn't seem particularly sad that her mom's dead and is more frustrated that she can't immediately use the trust fund to move to LA.
- Bad "Bad Acting": A hilarious scene ensues in Re:Up if Nicole chooses to join the acting class and do the table reading with Emily.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: Averted. Nicole, when accused by Ari in one possible ending of possibly enjoying killing animals, replies that she's never tried it, prompting Ari to react in disgust that she doesn't even get angry at the negative assumption about her.
- Beauty Breeds Laziness: Nicole believes this in the Adulthood Ending.Nicole: And that's when I learned the grand irony of being pretty, it destroys your dopamine levels, you don't wanna do shit.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: As absurd as it sounds, this is why Ari asks her out during her route. Despite Nicole being, well, Nicole, she ended up helping Ari by shutting down the Counselor's advances towards both of them and telling Ari that she shouldn't worry about being rejected for her sexuality. Of course, regardless of how Nicole chooses to respond to Ari, Ari pretty quickly figures out that Nicole is not a good person despite this though this ends up turning her on more in the ending where Nicole rejects Ari.
- Being Good Sucks: This is the conclusion she comes to in many of the routes where she decides to be nice to certain people or otherwise tries to remain neutral on matters instead of reacting with spite, on account of No Good Deed Goes Unpunished being in full effect and constantly screwing her over in the end.
- Big "SHUT UP!": During the Megan route, Nicole just finally unloads on Jeffery while the latter tries to get her as a lab partner. She screams at him to shut up, and it actually works.
- Brilliant, but Lazy: Most of the time, Nicole can't be bothered to do anything that doesn't give her instant gratification. But the few times she actually does apply herself, Nicole has proven to be surprisingly charismatic, a devious schemer, and can get her grades up when motivated by her petty revenge plans. Several routes end with her achieving fame and fortune such as when she became a YouTube star or won a major lawsuit against her school.
- Brutal Honesty: To an unnecessary degree of brutality. She does not mince her words when it comes to her opinions of anyone, regardless of what their current mental state is. She arguably holds back a tad with Jecka, though she still openly insults several of her interests like Smallville.
- Buxom Beauty Standard: Played with in that Nicole is quite well-endowed but she does not particularly stand out in a World of Buxom, nor is her chest size overtly exaggerated or focused on like most examples. However, many characters such as Jecka and Jeffery have commented on Nicole's bust size and how they are one of her physical traits that makes her a Dude Magnet.
- Byronic Hero: Her ideals are based more on her criticism of society rather than providing a viable alternative herself, and her intellect is shown more in manipulation and cunning rather than book smarts, but she otherwise checks most of the boxes. Hot, capable, mentally troubled, always brooding on negativity, at odds with society, difficult to get close to, (VERY) hidden soft side, etc.
- Can't Live With Them, Can't Live Without Them: Her relationship with Jecka could be considered this. Although the two frequently engage in Snark-to-Snark Combat and Nicole tends to downplay their friendship to the point of engaging in Kick the Morality Pet, it turns out in Flip Side that Jecka is actually Nicole's Living Emotional Crutch. If Jecka does not give Nicole her emotional support, Nicole will mentally shut down to the point that, in Nicole's words, she "loses the will to do anything." Also, Jecka's moral compass input allows her to tell Nicole when she is going too far, not that Nicole always listens.
- Card-Carrying Jerkass: How else would you describe someone who willingly identifies as a sociopath? She's given up on life and is completely open about how little she cares about anyone else's opinion on the matter.
- Celeb Crush: In Flip Side, Nicole mentions that she has one on Marilyn Manson.
- Closet Geek:
- She is secretly a big fan of the science entertainment show, MythBusters, and was a Gamer Chick due to her brother's influence growing up before losing interest in the medium as she got older.
- It gets played with when Jeffery mentions that Nicole looked like someone who "liked anime" in one dialogue, though Nicole categorically rejects his assumption and denies this, making no mention of any anime at all outside of basic familiarity, even if she goes through the option to pretend to be nice to Jeffery.
- Closet Key: Unintentionally to Emily during their route in Re-Up as revealed in the text message received after the ending.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Definitely a darker example than most. Nicole's often getting into these rants about how everyone around her is a racist, a rapist, or a pedophile with such frequency that it's clear that she truly believes it on some level. Her off the wall attempts at trying to figure out the people around her feel more like the ramblings of a paranoid schizophrenic as opposed to her self-proclaimed sociopathy. What keeps her from being The Ophelia is that she's ultimately sane and her comments are intended to be funny instead of disturbing.
- Cuckoosnarker: When your first response to a classmate committing suicide is to quote Family Matters, you certainly qualify.
- Comedic Sociopathy: Deals with this in spades. The overall joke of the visual novel series is that the protagonist role wasn't given to the Naïve Newcomer or The Everyman, but the Alpha Bitch sociopath borderline nihilist who would rather burn out than fade away. Unless she knows the action will come back to bite her or, to a lesser extent, Jecka, Nicole will do whatever she wants - often impulsively - to ride the high of seeing others suffer. This reaches its logical conclusion during the Dating Ari route, where Nicole is given a punching bag that will take her abuse repeatedly, but at some point it stops being so 'comedic' there.
- Compliment Fishing: As standoffish as Nicole is, she does love it when people give her nice compliments on her good looks. In the original game, she blatantly does this to Jecka at one point to get her to list all of Nicole's attractive traits.Nicole: But like that pretty? No way.
Jecka: If you're gonna be one of those girls who fish for compliment 24/7 I'm gonna find someone else to sit with.
Nicole: No seriously, like what are they worked up over?
Jecka: (sighs) You're cute, long flowing hair, and... big boobs.
Nicole: Okay I was fishing for compliments.
Jecka: Knew it. - Covert Pervert: Despite her snarky and aloof personality, and that she constantly mocks people for their sexual interests, Nicole is Not So Above It All, particularly in regards to other girls. She express interest in seeing nude pictures of Principal Lynn, Ari, and Kelly in different routes throughout the games and in the anime. In Re-Up, Nicole doesn't deny that she wants to do "weird shit" to Jecka, such as putting a cigarette out on Jecka's neck and licking the burn mark afterwards, when Jecka calls Nicole out on it after Nicole propose they give being Friends with Benefits a try. Nicole also mentions that she likes to stay up late to watch Girls Gone Wild commercials.
- Cynicism Catalyst: As Nicole admits in the graduation ending, walking in on her father just as he committed suicide and finding his suicide note where he explicitly blamed her for it really screwed her up. Though she had lived with negative thoughts for most of her life up until that point, she only started consistently acting on them and forgoing even pretending to be nice after that.
- Deadpan Snarker: Yes. Unless she's shaken up over her (to put it mildly) dysfunctional life, everything out of Nicole's mouth is either disaffected sarcasm or acidic sass throughout the game.
- Deconstructive Parody: Of the Otome Game heroine. Like most otome heroines, Nicole is a Dude Magnet who must learn to navigate in a new environment. In Nicole's case, she is the classical New Transfer Student. However, being the center of attention to a lot guys, including adult men, for most of her teenage life has made Nicole develop a strong belief that All Men Are Perverts. She also spent most of her life continuously moving across coastal America due to her mother's failed marriages, and thus has been the "new girl" for years. As a result, Nicole Does Not Like Men as she is wise to the guys' attempts to get in her good graces early before she becomes accustomed to her new surroundings, sees no reason to form lasting attachments, and is tired of pretending to be nice.
- Deuteragonist: Of Flip Side since it is a P.O.V. Sequel with Jecka as the main protagonist.
- Disproportionate Retribution: This trope is one of Nicole's weaknesses. She will remember any minor slight against her and hit back far, far harder if she has the option without consideration for any consequences. Though it's Played for Laughs in the Megan route, where Nicole takes a Control Freak down to size, it sees Nicole expelled from school, kicked out of her house by her mother, becoming homeless and forced to do sexual favors to survive in the Explusion route, when Nicole draws a crude picture of Mr. Lorre hanging himself while his wife cheats on him because Mr. Lorre asked her to draw in an art class.
- Does Not Like Men: She hates men and strongly holds onto the belief that All Men Are Perverts, as her whole life she has been surrounded by men who were all either abusers, perverts or pedophiles. The breaking point for Nicole seemingly came after her father committed suicide and blamed her for it. She has no problems using men for her own benefit, but she otherwise can't stand being around them. The one exception she appears to make is for her Celeb Crush Marilyn Manson.
- Don't You Dare Pity Me!: She gets incredibly offended when her mother suggests that she's "acting out" over her father's suicide.
- The Dreaded: She becomes this to all the guys at school in the route where Kylar jumps off the roof either to prove his love for her or out of spite if she rejects him there. As Kylar had barely known her before pulling off the stunt, all of the other guys immediately assume she has some kind of supernatural power to brainwash guys into killing themselves for her. However, according to Nicole in the Valedictorian ending, she only had this reputation for a month, with the exception of Jeffery, who she manages to intimidate into doing her homework all the way until graduation.
- Dreary Half-Lidded Eyes: Her default expression, showing just how done with life she is.
- Dude Magnet: Being a satire of a Dating Sim heroine, almost all of her male classmates are attracted to her on some level as well as some of the teachers. Being a Deconstructive Parody, she can't stand any of the male attention she gets. There's also the fact that the number of male faculty who try to proposition her highlights the school's major problem with housing sexual predators.
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Easily Forgiven: After Megan's route, Hunter sends Nicole a text saying he doesn't hold anything against her for using the dick pics he sent to her to publicly humiliate Megan and even asks if Nicole is free to ask out now that Megan's broken up with him. - Establishing Character Moment: The intro to both games is told from Nicole's perspective, and illustrates how she can flip out when properly agitated, her deep levels of introspection when she's alone with her thoughts, and how thoroughly acerbic, crude, and sociopathic she is.
- Even the Girls Want Her: Both Ari and Emily can attest to that. Nicole can mention that it is a huge boost to her self-esteem knowing that she is "universally hot" since even girls are attracted to her.
- Even Evil Has Standards:
- Downplayed in that she makes note of serious issues but is too indifferent and cynical most of the time to bother doing anything about them. Though Nicole does personally voice distaste for racism, homophobia, and especially pedophilia, she has options where she either plays into them for her own benefit or just lets them happen:
- In regards to her views on pedophilia, while she can out the various teachers of the school for being pedophiles, one route has her willingly go to Coach Colby's house to have sex with him for money. In the expulsion route, she also willingly does sexual favors for grown men for money and drugs and finds it preferable to working retail (though only because said drugs numb her to the sheer despair she'd otherwise feel from having to constantly debase herself). The closest she comes to actually acting on this principle consistently is in regards to getting other students away from the counselor, and even then, she has the option in one instance to let him basically ask her out just to get out of school early.
- In regards to her views on racism and homophobia, she doesn't personally hold any racist or homophobic beliefs, but choices often have her either let it continue to happen in her school out of sheer indifference or exploit it outright. She never gets formally indoctrinated into Mr. White's white nationalist cult in his route but only has a single option where she decides to take it down, and she only rushes to save Ari from being killed in a firebombing in Ari's rejection route because she personally doesn't want to be blamed for a hate crime.
- To a minor extent, she has a brief expression of horror as Jecka has Jeffery executed if he tries to skip out on being a part of the White Nationalist Party.
- That being said, she plays this a bit straighter in certain instances. She sounds legitimately concerned for Jecka after finding out that Jecka's mother threatens her with "disciplinary tattoos" over poor school performance and refuses to do hard drugs like cocaine because she doesn't want to accidentally murder someone while high, indicating she actually draws the line at actually killing people even though she has no problems peddling the stuff to other people.
- Downplayed in that she makes note of serious issues but is too indifferent and cynical most of the time to bother doing anything about them. Though Nicole does personally voice distaste for racism, homophobia, and especially pedophilia, she has options where she either plays into them for her own benefit or just lets them happen:
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: In the route where she dates Ari, she doesn't see any problem with being an abusive partner because she thinks Ari can just break up with her at any time if she has a problem with it. Jecka tries to spell it out for Nicole that Ari sticks with her because there aren't any other lesbians in the school, but Nicole completely fails to see how it's her problem.
- Evil Is Petty: If someone so much as annoys her, and she finds out some compromising personal information about them, she will use it to either publicly humiliate them or completely destroy their life. Unfortunately, not even Jecka is safe from this. In The Flip Slide, if Jecka chooses not to let Nicole in on her sex for services scheme, Nicole will angrily call Jecka a whore and then get into the business anyways, with Jecka's father as her client.
- Evil vs. Evil: Make no mistake - at her saintliest, Nicole is an Anti-Hero who often ends up suffering for her own cruel actions, and can easily be an outright Villain Protagonist or Nominal Hero depending on the scenario. However, most of the school faculty and students are outright worse than she is, and frequently she ends up either accidentally or intentionally screwing over neo-nazis, white nationalists, homophobic cultists, necrophiliacs, pedophiles, crazy cops, and more.
- Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: Nicole is a very beautiful girl, but is extremely cruel, petty, and manipulative.
- Fatal Attractor: It's hard not to understand the basis of Nicole's behavior when you recognize what an absolute psycho magnet she is. The characters who declare their love for her across the series include a mass shooter and two self-destructive, suicidal classmates one of whom can easily try to drag Nicole down with her in a murder-suicide pact.
- Fatal Flaw: Her impulsiveness and desire to always take actions that personally amuse her. When she's actively trying, Nicole is incredible at manipulating others, and has the street smarts to get ahead in most situations. The main thing holding her back is that she's a sociopathic thrill junkie who often has an overinflated idea about what she can get away with. Almost any route where she dies, is sent to prison, or alienates herself from everyone comes about because she thinks entirely about what she will get out of the situation in the moment, such as trying to extort money from Coach Colby for sexual favors or selling gang-owned cocaine even after it becomes clear the principal is on to her.
- Favors for the Sexy: It's easy for her to get what she wants from guys just by flirting with them or even remotely suggesting they have the slightest chance with her. Kylar was even boneheaded enough to give her the keys to his house in the off chance of getting her interested in him.
- Foil: Nicole's polar opposite is Megan, which is the reason for their antagonistic relationship. Megan is an ambitious honor student who seeks any opportunity she can to take on a leadership position, and has rigid beliefs about things like premarital sex. Nicole is a nihilistic burnout who doesn't really believe in anything other than her own survival and entertainment. She finds Megan to be a pompous blowhard, leading to at least two story arcs in The Re-Up pitting them against each other.
- For the Evulz: She often encourages people to ruin their lives or otherwise do incredibly stupid stunts just because she's curious to see what it will look like.
- Freudian Excuse:
- Her sociopathy can at least be partially attributed to just how dysfunctional her life is. Due to her mother's inability to maintain a marriage, combined with her history of abuse, Nicole has been forced to transfer schools multiple times, so she never had the chance to emotionally connect with anyone her age. Then, when she was able to stay at a school for more than a year and became popular due to puberty kicking in, she realized she found the popular girls annoying and that she could easily manipulate guys with her looks, only isolating her from everyone even further. Before she could even work through her thoughts on this matter, she was forced to move to another school yet again due to her brother getting them all evicted and her dad's suicide. At that point, she decided she wasn't going to even bother trying to be a nice person.
- Her belief that most grown men are pedophiles can be attributed to her having an adult brother who very much is into minors. Nicole also mentions in the original game's intro that some of her mother's marriages ended with restraining orders against her spouses, likely implying that many of her mother's husbands were violent or pedophiles, or both.
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: In the route where Nicole is arrested and sent to prison for peddling hard drugs, Jecka will call her out when Nicole tries to use her family situation as an excuse, pointing out that her crappy life doesn't justify committing actual crimes, and that everything she did was her choice and not something she was forced on like she had just deluded herself into thinking.
- Friendless Background: Due to constantly having to transfer schools in the past, she never had a chance and consequently lost the motivation to make friends with any of her peers. Even after she became popular in her previous school due to puberty kicking in, she never really joined a clique with the other popular girls due to finding them dumb. The general isolation for most of her life led to her ultimately seeing no point in forming a deeper connection with anyone, though by most accounts, she does actually end up developing something resembling a friendship with Jecka and to a lesser extent Emily in her current school.
- Functional Addict: Invoked for tragedy. On its own, Nicole can function just fine with her admitted addiction to prescription pills. Much to Jecka's horror, however, during the expulsion route, Nicole ends up needing to be perpetually drugged up to stay sane while she's selling her body to afford food and showers; as Nicole tells it, she gets paid in drugs because she can't debase herself 'sober.'
- Gamer Chick: Downplayed. Her brother mentions that Nicole used to play video games with him in the past, but lost interest as she got older. In one possible scene in the original game, Nicole can offer to play the latest shooter game with her brother to get out of helping him solicit minors over chat. Although in the anime pilot, she is introduced seemly playing a game on her sidekick phone in the middle of class.
- Girl-on-Girl is Hot: Nicole is noticeably invested in Ari and Kelly's Slap-Slap-Kiss moment, and gives a disappointed "What the fuck..." when Kelly stops herself from making out with Ari at the last moment. Afterwards, Nicole admits that she thinks it would be fun to be an "sexed up abusive lesbian" with Jecka for about a week.
- Gold Digger: She explicitly only flirts with guys to get something out of them.
- Harmful to Minors: Even before she encountered the pedophiles in her current school, she had walked in on her father immediately after he messily committed suicide and left a note blaming her for it, which was what made her give up on life in the first place. She also implies in her opening narration of the original game that, during her childhood, she had to watch several of her mother's marriages turn truly ugly, considering she mentions restraining orders being involved alongside an accompanying illustration of a door that was violently forced open.
- Has a Type: According to the Twitter Q&A, Nicole states that she likes girls who will let her "beat the shit out of them" when she is bored. During the Date Ari route in Re-Up, Nicole claims to start loving Ari after discovering that she is an Extreme Doormat and then proceeded to emotionally abuse her girlfriend for the next couple weeks. Nicole did seem genuinely upset when the abuse became too much for Ari, leading her to break up with Nicole, although this could have been out of hurt pride from being the one who got dumped. In another route, Nicole asks Jecka if they want to give being "sexed up abusive lesbians" a try. Jecka refuses on the grounds she knows full-well that Nicole will be the one doing all the abusing in that relationship.
- Hates Everyone Equally: Downplayed especially by Re-up due to her friendship with Jecka and Emily to a lesser extent, but Nicole's overall opinions of everyone else range from annoyance to absolute disdain.
- Hates Their Parent: She has very little love for her mother, considering that her multiple failed marriages are the reason why she's constantly had to move and change schools. Furthermore, Nicole's mother is shown to be very dismissive of her, and at her worst, can be very abusive towards her, with several routes ending with her disinheriting and kicking Nicole out of the house, or threatening to do so, and becoming physically violent with her in one for "being a disappointment". Nicole outright calls her mother "a bitch" in Re-up's intro, where she is shown being chocked by her. Tellingly, both the graduation ending and the ending in which Nicole drops out of school and moves to LA after winning $500,000 in a lawsuit have Nicole cutting ties with her mother altogether, being more than happy to never see her again, and the ending in which Nicole is murdered and raped by Coach Colby (...In That Order) also has Nicole explicitly state that both her mother and her brother can "fuck off and burn in hell" with her.
- The Hedonist: Basically half of her character, the other half being her sociopathy. Nicole is all about getting gratification as soon as possible, and will trample over everyone short of maybe Jecka and Emily to get it. Though she can plan out elaborate revenge schemes for one enormous hit of catharsis, as with her schemes against Megan and Ms. Ames in their respective routes, more often than not Nicole will take the path of least resistance to bully nerds, steal things, and insult her teachers. This very quality is also frequently why Nicole ends up screwing herself over.
- Heel Realization: She has the option to have a small one after she exposes Jeffery's fetishes to the entire school, actually going to the trouble of pulling Jeffery out of his suicidally depressed state that otherwise would have resulted in him shooting up the school in a mass Murder-Suicide, with it explicitly being labelled an act done out of guilt due to her "girl hormones". She immediately regrets it when it results in Jeffery considering her a friend.
- Her Own Worst Enemy: Whether it be her impulsiveness, her pettiness, her vengefulness, or even sometimes her willingness to back down when she really should take one of her schemes to the bank, it almost always comes down to factors within Nicole's control that lead her to her worst endings. Even outside of Nicole's negative endings, Jecka more or less demonstrates how Nicole can be in the 'popular' crowd without needlessly antagonizing people or deliberately being a poor student, as she's in AP history and rigorously studies French while still being popular and acerbic to creeps around her.
- The Hero Dies: During the Coach Colby route, Suicide Ending, and School Shooter Ending in the original game. Re-Up has a subversion of this during the Emily route.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Not an extreme example as she believes she can take the consequences just fine, but should Nicole temporarily ruin her friendship with Jecka by socially sacrificing her to her brother, she will intervene the following day when the Counselor starts harassing Jecka by bullying Jeffery hard enough to attract the Counselor's attention, even though that means having to be in his office every morning. Jecka is genuinely touched by this.
- Hidden Depths:
- It's implied that for all her derision of the guys and the 'nerd shit' they're into, Nicole honestly, unironically enjoys watching MythBusters, even while not high. She tries to get Jecka interested by insisting every other episode accidentally teaches people a way to make crystal meth, and when Jecka confronts her on why she'd want to watch MythBusters so badly, Nicole gets defensive and swears it's just the only thing on when she skips school.
- If she decides to write something mean in Jeffery's yearbook during the graduation route, it'll be revealed that, for as little attention as she pays in class, she actually has very neat handwriting and can in fact write a lot even if it's just to set up an insult. Compare that to the much messier single-word ill wishes of the other students who wrote in his yearbook.
- For all of Nicole's talk of being a sociopath who hates (almost) everyone and roots for the world to end, there are heavy implications that it's a defense mechanism she developed due to childhood trauma, and that at the end of the day, she's just a lonely teenage girl who wants some friends. She's too prideful to ever truly allow herself the self reflection needed to grow as a person, but there are several moments where Nicole realizes she was too caustic or cruel and seems genuinely remorseful of her behavior, like when she first snapped at Ari or if she socially sacrifices Jecka to her brother.
- In Flip Side, conversation between her and Jecka about how Jecka's dad wants to fuck Nicole reveals that she actually memorized Jecka's birthday (or at least the month it's on), which seems like something a self-admitted sociopath wouldn't bother with.
- Icy Blue Eyes: It's more obvious in the animated short, but Nicole has incredibly striking deep blue eyes. True to form, she's a sociopath, and thus only ever remarks at the events around her with snark, scorn, or apathy.
- If It's You, It's Okay: Nicole makes it clear that she Does Not Like Men and she is hinted to be a lesbian several times, but she notably has a Celeb Crush on Marilyn Manson, outright saying that he is "the one man on Earth" she'd like to be sexually abused by.
- Ignored Epiphany: Played for laughs in the charity fraud route, where being forced to serve time in jail for selling crack makes Nicole cognizant of how much she wants friendship and how she made a lot of mistakes, only for her to remark about how great it will feel to torture Principal Lynn to death for ratting her out to the police.
- I Have Boobs, You Must Obey!: Despite living in a World of Buxom, Nicole is one of the very few women to have other characters comment on her well-endowed chest. Nicole's "big boobs" are among the things that Jecka list off for what physical traits makes it easy for Nicole to manipulate the guys around her.
- Impossible Theft: Manages to pull one off in the animated short by snatching Jecka's last xanax pill from under her shirt without even being noticed.
- Informed Attractiveness: Downplayed in that Nicole is drawn to look pretty, but she doesn't particularly stand out from her female classmates despite being the biggest Dude Magnet among the cast. Nicole actually does give a few in-story explanations on why that is. As the New Transfer Student, she is aware that most of the guys are trying to use what she describes as the "new kid grace period" to get in her good graces before she starts making friends on her social level. Also, Nicole mentions that while she believes that Jecka is the prettier of the two, guys are more likely going to pursue Nicole more since she is "trashier" and supposedly more likely to put out due to a lack of a male figure after her father died.
- Insane Troll Logic:
- In Re-Up, when she's tasked into doing a community service, she does so by selling drugs reasoning that she's actually contributing to the community by selling it for cheap. She's eventually caught and sentenced to prison for 3 years.
- Her reasoning for why every male high school teacher is a pedophile is because there's no reason a man would want a teaching position that pays so poorly unless he wanted to prey on teenage girls. This is of course ignoring a ton of factors, including the existence of female high school teachers.
- Interclass Friendship: It's hardly ever brought up, but Jecka is actually from a fairly well-off family and gets a lot of expensive stuff for free due to her mother working for a chain of department stores. Despite this, Nicole generally gets along with her the best out of all the students. In one of their potential introductions, Nicole is even surprised by how not stuck-up Jecka is despite her preppy fashion sense.
- This is eventually brought up in the ending that involves Jecka and Nicole covering up Jeffery's death. In that ending, Jecka equates Nicole to the "ghetto kids" who don't want the police alerted when trouble goes down at a house party. However, notably, in one of the prior game's routes Jecka actually chided Nicole for using poverty to post-hoc rationalize going on a crime spree.... when both girls live in middle-class suburbs.
- Irony:
- Played tragically. Nicole's favorite excuse to use for getting out of school work is that she suffers from depression. Not only are there several hints she actually does, two endings see Nicole actually get depressed enough to commit suicide, though she's saved by her mother and thrown into a straitjacket at some asylum in one scenario.
- Despite having no problem calling various men she encounters throughout the game pedophiles to their face, she never once does this to her brother who always gets arrested for possession of child porn in the middle of the story.
- Jerkass Has a Point: In some routes like the graduation ending she will ultimately out some of the teachers as sexual predators during the ceremony, being correct that most of the staff has a darker side to them, just not always involving pedophilia. Even the now-fired Principal Lynn admits afterward that it's about time she faced the consequences for letting it slide.
- Kick the Dog:
- Pretty much everything that she does to Jeffery just because he's annoying is disproportionately harsh, but the stand out is her and Emily ruining his relationship with Karen in Emily's route just because they don't like the idea of him being happy.
- In the route where she dates Ari, the moment Nicole finds out that her girlfriend is an Extreme Doormat, she spends the next couple days emotionally abusing Ari just to see what she can get away with. When Nicole brags about the power trips she gets from hurting Ari, Jecka is understandably horrified and points out that even for Nicole, her mistreatment of Ari is just straight up evil.
- Kick the Morality Pet:
- Despite Jecka being the sole character she rarely ever intentionally screws over, she can leave Jecka at the mercy of Nicole's older brother when Jecka's at her house. Jecka calls her out for this. Incidentally, it's followed up by one of Nicole's few Pet the Dog moments, where she intentionally gets in trouble with the school counselor to stop him from preying on Jecka.
- She gets an even worse moment in Flip Side. After Jecka reveals how much she gets for selling herself out to feet fetishists and if she chooses not to split the revenue with her, Nicole decides to get in on it after calling Jecka a whore. And the one client of hers we see? Jecka's dad. Nicole is completely unrepentant about it when caught in the act too. The whole incident causes Jecka to be Driven to Suicide.
- Knight of Cerebus: Surprisingly, she manages to serve as this in Flip Side. Any time Nicole shows up, it's a sign that things are about to go From Bad to Worse. Downplayed and somewhat Justified in that Nicole is a Weirdness Magnet/Villain Protagonist, and up until Flip Side, we were seeing things through her perspective.
- Laborious Laziness: In general, Nicole puts in a lot work just for the sake of being lazy, and tends to ignore people when told she just needs to put in the bare minimum effort into a project. Some of these assignments are as simple as drawing a picture and volunteering for a charity, only for her to turn those into a revenge plot and a drug dealing scheme respectively. The latter is especially absurd because the volunteer hours weren't being verified, meaning she should have gotten neighbors or strangers to fake the signatures. In one route, she goes through a lot of trouble just to get into remedial classes, all because she believes being surrounded by the worst students will mean she won't have to do any real work. Both Jecka and Emily even lampshades that Nicole's crazy schemes to get out of work are more trouble than just her simply doing the assignments:Jecka: Do you feel like you're getting to a point where the excuse for not doing homework are more effort than the homework itself?
- Lack of Empathy: Being a sociopath, Nicole seems genuinely incapable of feeling guilt over her actions, and often takes enjoyment in the misery of others. That being said, it's pretty heavily implied that this is a front Nicole puts up to hide her boundless levels of self-loathing and disdain for the world around her as she does tend to lay off when people are actually distressed as seen with Kylar and Jecka. The aftermath of her abusive relationship with Ari has her contemplating her own guilt.
- Light Feminine and Dark Feminine: The Dark Feminine to Jecka's Light Feminine. It's even reflected in their choices of wardrobe, with Nicole often gravitating towards dark colors.
- Lousy Lovers Are Losers: A notable aversion in regard to her dating route with Ari, considering how often abusers like her typically have this trope applied to them in such stories. Even after breaking up with her, Ari still texts her afterwards asking to be Friends with Benefits because she misses the sex.
M-Z
- Madness Mantra: In The Flip Side, if Jecka chooses not to help Nicole escape from her hostage friendships that eventually results in her committing suicide, Nicole sends Jecka a message titled "why why why why". It's pretty eerie.
- Moral Myopia: Nicole doesn't appear to like manipulators or sexual predators, but has no qualms about sexually harassing or taking advantage of boys she doesn't like, such as when she manipulates Hunter into cheating on Megan in her route. When Jecka points out her hypocrisy, she essentially says that what she's doing is okay because she's a girl and guys deserve what she gives them, because they, in her words, "fly off the handle for barely anything".
- Murder by Inaction: In one of the branches for Flip Side's Foot Fetishist route, she ends up feeding Jeffery a cocktail of drugs and alcohol that causes him to OD. When Jecka frantically tries to call 911 to get someone to resuscitate him, Nicole stops her, as she knows that Jeffery will rat her out, and she's unwilling to go to prison.
- Never My Fault: Played With. She doesn't have problems admitting to being a terrible person in general, but she has significantly more issues actually owning up to the consequences of specific actions, and given how the people who screw her over tend to often be terrible themselves, she's more than willing to use confirmation bias to keep all of the blame from falling onto her. In the expulsion route, she puts all of the blame on being expelled onto Mr. Lorre, when he only expelled her because she intentionally exposed his terrible home life to the rest of the class out of spite. Subverted in the charity fraud ending, where she launches into a highly introspective self-reflection about choices and consequences, before she doubly subverts it and viciously swears revenge on Principal Lynn for landing her in jail to begin with. You know, because Lynn told the police that she was dealing crack cocaine.
- Nice, Mean, and In-Between: The in-between next to Jecka and Emily, though played humorously for one gag where she's jealous of the fact Emily is somehow worse than she is. Despite everything, Nicole rarely physically threatens people and is normally too bored and uninterested to do anything truly onerous unless she's fired up. Effectively, she's only not the 'mean' because she can't be bothered to put any effort into it in most cases.
- Nightmare Fetishist: She thinks Self-Harm is hot, and the animated short implies that she wants Emily to have sex with her dead body. In Re-Up, Jecka will refuse Nicole's offer to be "sexed up abusive lesbians" because she knows exactly all the weird stuff that Nicole is into. In a twitter Q&A asking if she has a crush on anyone, her answer is any girl who will let her beat the shit out of them, not because she's mad but more like out of boredom.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Deliberately being nice or trying to take school seriously will end up screwing Nicole over. Notably, if Nicole earnestly tries to be friends with some of the male students (including talking Jeffery out of shooting up the school by talking him out of his negative feelings), she ends up exhausted by their antics and is eventually ostracized over a nasty rumor no one defends her from, as all of the male students turn against her and begin bullying her over it, the counselor downplays her concerns, which causes her to begin skipping school, and her mother completely ignores her problems and threatens to kick her out of the house if she doesn't return to school. She becomes so fed up with how people treat her that she hangs herself.
- Not So Above It All: Nicole likes to play herself as being above everything that happens around her, but the animated short has Nicole react with childlike wonderment at the sight of Emily having fries from McDonald's before then accosting Emily until she gives a fry over.
- Oblivious to Her Own Description: Played straight for tragedy. Nicole is aware she's a terrible person, but she thinks she's the 'regular' sort of terrible, and doesn't understand how her explanation of the Counselor's character to Ari more or less matches Nicole herself at the current juncture. Her lack of empathy and her overly logical look at the situation she's in convinces her that she's not an abuser because Ari could leave the relationship any time Ari wanted, ignorant to the extenuating circumstances that would make Ari want to try to make a relationship with Nicole work. Despite everything, she ends the dating Ari route mostly confused, because she genuinely thought Ari would be better off not wanting Nicole, still oblivious to exactly what made her so terrible at that time.
- Only Smart by Comparison: While Nicole is a Street Smart teenager who, in some routes can scheme and manipulate people into doing her bidding and acting as she wants them to, part of the reason why it works is because most people she deals with are idiots who Nicole can easily dupe with sexual and/or platonic charm or by appealing to their egos. However, at the end of the day she's still an arrogant teenager who thinks she's smart enough to always avoid any consequences, and certain routes can lead to her attitude getting herself expelled, arrested, or even killed.
- OOC Is Serious Business:
- In the route where Kylar attempts to ask her out and she harshly rejects him, she reacts with legitimate shock and actual concern when Kylar starts crying and admits he was only asking her out because he didn't want to be seen alone at the lacrosse convention. And when Kylar talks about committing suicide over it, Nicole actually apologizes and agrees to go with him to the convention (though she still makes it clear she doesn't want to be in a relationship with him). Incidentally, this is an instance of someone acting out of character in response to someone else acting out of character.
- Her discussion with Jecka on the state of her life during the climax of the expulsion route has her quietly seething and at one point almost crying during the exchange, which illustrates just how deplorable her situation is and how even an admitted sociopath can crack under the amount of pressure Nicole is contending with. It's later followed up by sincere, venomous, all-consuming rage directed at Mr. Lorre when Nicole catches him trying to extort sexual favors from her.
- Outliving One's Offspring: Nicole can inverted this in Re-up. Her dad's been dead for years and her mom can suddenly die from a heart attack that could've been prevented had Nicole and Jecka not snorted all her medication trying to get high.
- Pet the Dog:
- Deconstructed Trope. Nicole can be nice to people, but often it's only because she's just aware of the cultural zeitgeist and is following what she thinks is a normal trend - like not having an issue with Ari being a lesbian. Given how cynical the world in this story is, it's less that Nicole is intentionally being nice and often more she just doesn't see a point in being mean at a given juncture. Almost any nice action she takes either has no actual backing beyond Nicole thinking her actions are normal or is part of a larger effort to get something out of someone. Additionally, just because she's willing to be nice in the moment to a person doesn't mean she'll continue to be nice to that person, given she's canonically a 'blaze of glory' sociopath who typically only exists in the moment to enjoy herself. Even when she does try to be nice with no strings attached, she's often made to suffer for her kindness down the line.
- Nevertheless, Nicole in Re-up does do something genuinely kindhearted and downright self-sacrificing, when she intentionally gets herself in trouble with the school counselor to get him to stop perving on Jecka who even admits that it was the nicest thing anyone's ever done for her. Possibly subverted if Nicole just did it to get her to hang back out with her after what happened between the two the day prior. Re-up specifically showing that Nicole does have at least one other person like Jecka to hang out with makes it even more unclear what her true intentions were. However, given it's Nicole it's probably at least both.
- Ping Pong Naïveté: How much Nicole knows about a particular subject matter or how well read she is largely depends on branching story paths throughout the visual novels. During several routes in the original game, she is able to correct identify Mr. White as a white nationalist, but then in Re-Up she legitimately doesn't know what communism is. This also applies to how much she knows about her classmates. Some routes would have Nicole treat certain characters like long time associates, but then complete strangers in others. For example, one opening in Re-Up has Nicole mentioning she is aware that Ari was in the girl scouts, but the player can still go through the route where Jecka would need to explain to Nicole about Ari's status as a former girl scout.
- Please, Don't Leave Me: A very small but poignant moment happens in The Flip Side where if Nicole is Driven to Suicide by Jecka not prioritizing friend, Jecka will receive a message directly from Nicole, who says "why can't u help me," showing that Nicole is actually very dependent on Jecka to be her Living Emotional Crutch.
- Pragmatic Pansexuality: She doesn't seem to be explicitly attracted to anyone, but is willing to go out with both genders if it means getting something out of it.
- Pride in Their Behind: In one route Nicole, screams for help from Colby, saying that he's trying to "grab some minor ass." When Ari comes in, Nicole states that she means minor as in being underaged (she's 17), and says she thinks her ass itself is pretty major.
- Properly Paranoid: If it were any other setting, Nicole's belief that most male K-12 teachers are pedophiles and that most female teachers are on crazed power trips would come off as the ravings of a drug-addled mad woman. As it turns out, at least in the school she attends, Nicole is absolutely correct. The only things she doesn't see coming are that there's also a white nationalist, a racist, and a crackhead.
- Proud Beauty: She has no problems saying that she's hot and is more than willing to use her looks to manipulate the guys.
- Pseudo-Romantic Friendship:
- With her Best Friend Jecka. Something that the Counselor and Kelly have made note of in Re-Up is that many of Nicole and Jecka's snarky interactions has come off as Belligerent Sexual Tension. The apparent sexual tension isn't lost on either girl as Nicole proposed that they give being Friends with Benefits a try in Re-Up while Jecka jokingly suggest they become an actual couple in Flip Side. Although in both cases, the other girl ended up denying their friend's idea.
- Nicole could develop this kind of relationship with Emily during her route in Re-Up to the point that they give each other a nonchalant Platonic Declaration of Love in the middle of their story. This does however become a technical subversion when Emily reveals in her text given at the end of her route that she is unquestionably "super fucking gay" for Nicole and that all of her earlier interactions with Nicole were each a Secretly Gay Activity.
- Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: Nicole is a dark haired brunette who has a slightly paler complexion compare to the others characters and is considered very physically attractive.
- Rudeness Backfire: Depending on the route, Nicole's acerbic behavior can actually bite her in the ass.
- In the school shooter ending route, Nicole ends up humiliating Jeffrey by revealing his fetishes to everyone at school. Jeffrey is so humiliated at this that he decides to shoot up the school in retaliation. If Nicole apologizes, he decides not to, but if she doesn't, he decides to make Nicole his first victim before going on to shoot up the rest of the school.
- Played for Drama in the Expulsion Route, Nicole finds out that her art teacher, Mr. Lorre, is being cheated on by his wife. Nicole, because she hates being in art class, decides to draw a picture of Mr. Lorre hanging himself while his wife has sex with an UPS man. As a result, and because Mr. Lorre labelled the drawing as sexual harassment, Nicole ends up getting expelled, which infuriates her mother so much that she kicks her out of the house, and Nicole eventually has to resort to prostituting herself to survive. She's fortunately able to get back in school after she discovers that Mr. Lorre was cheating on his wife with underage prostitutes and reports him to the principal, which causes the school board to deem his testimony unreliable, thus rescinding Nicole's expulsion and her mother allowing her to move back in, but she still suffers trauma from having to sell her body to survive.
- Self-Made Orphan: She can do this by accident if she and Jecka do lines of prescription drugs, as one of the drugs she gives Jecka to snort turns out to be her mom's last beta blocker. Shortly after, Nicole's mom comes home suffering from chest pains, and without the beta blocker, she ends up dying from a heart attack. Though actually legitimately horrified in the moment, Nicole's Lack of Empathy keeps her from being particularly broken up over her death afterwards.
- Sex God:
- Nicole mentions giving amazing head to Ari during her ending monologue in the Dating Ari route, and Ari seemingly confirms Nicole's claim by sending a text afterwards asking if they can be Friends with Benefits because she misses the sex even though she hates Nicole as a person.
- On a darker note, in the Expulsion route, a homeless Nicole is able find quite a bit of "success" as a MySpace escort despite only offering "upper favors." Although, Nicole's payment for the "favors" are showers, a place to sleep for the night, food, and apparently about a thousand dollars in drugs. Even after Nicole is able return back to her home, her "favors" are still highly sought after on MySpace as revealed in the text given after completing the route.
- In the Foot Fetishist route in The Flip Side, Nicole becomes the third top ranking girl on the foot fetishist network due to her abusive behavior being a turn on for her clients.
- Skimpiness Seduction: In one route in The Re-up, Nicole runs afoul of Megan and, wanting to get revenge on her, decides to seduce her boyfriend Hunter to mess with her. One day after starting the affair, one of the tactics Nicole uses has her wearing short shorts and being flirty towards him to get him to continue going along with it.
- Skipping School: She often cuts classes or school entirely out of a general lack of motivation and so she doesn't have to be around the students and teachers she hates.
- The Snark Knight: She mainly communicates through bitter sarcasm since she doesn't really care to act nice by the game's events.
- So Beautiful, It's a Curse: Although she is a Proud Beauty, her good looks have been the source of her problems in a couple routes and resulted in Nicole getting a lot of unwanted attention from both classmates and teachers.
- The Sociopath: She outright admits to being one in the intro. Just how many boxes she ticks off varies depending on the player's choices, but she generally suffers from a Lack of Empathy, often does horrible things to other people without feeling remorse and in fact derives enjoyment from it, is incredibly manipulative, and has serious issues with impulse control. That being said, she isn't completely incapable of forming emotional connections with other people, as seen by her actually getting along with Jecka much of the time, though this is skewed by her liking a lot of their bad qualities.
- Sole Survivor: Can become the last member of her family standing in Re-up should you avoid the Prison ending, as her brother still gets arrested for possession of child porn while her mother can die from a heart attack that could've been prevented if Nicole and Jecka hadn't snorted her heart medication for a cheap high.
- Sour Outside, Sad Inside: There is a lot of sour to get through, but underneath that is someone who feels her entire existence is hollow and invokes her sociopathy because actually feeling anything at all would be painful for her. She is self-aware enough to know that her actions are self-destructive, but she plainly doesn't care about her own life anymore.Nicole: "Usually when I look in the mirror all I see is a self-destructive, pill popping ho."
- Start of Darkness: Ironically, given that she trash talks Star Wars as being boring nerd/guy stuff, but her character arc across all three games is pretty close to Anakin Skywalker's. She starts out being taken under the wing of a more adept friend/mentor who knows the scene and setting by heart, impressing her peers with her ability to keep malicious forces (in this case, overly persistent boys and men) at bay. Cracks gradually start to show as her bitterness and resentment lead to unnecessary trauma and deaths, escalating into outright murder in the third installment.
- Sticky Fingers: Nicole rarely if ever buys anything with money, preferring to just shoplift and dine-and-dash.
- Tempting Fate: She will commonly joke about Jeffery someday snapping and shooting up the school or becoming a serial killer. However, in one of the endings, Jeffery will actually snap after being pushed too far by Nicole and he subsquently shoots up both the school and Nicole.
- Together in Death: Her final line in the ending where she's strangled by Coach Colby has her give a somber "See ya soon, Dad" before it all fades to black.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: The Tomboy to Jecka's Girly Girl. Though they're into many of the same things, Nicole is very blunt and aggressive and wears punkish clothing, while Jecka is more fashion-conscious and comparatively more likely to take a softer approach to certain situations. This is brought up when Nicole and Jecka were trying to convince a cop that they were filming an underage lesbian porno where Nicole claims she was playing the part of the "butch pizza delivery girl" while Jecka was playing the Lipstick Lesbian who had no money.
- Too Dumb to Live: More like Too Impulsive To Live, but a lot of the bad endings come about thanks to her making dumb decisions based on what she thinks it will get her in the moment. A particularly stupid example is when she willingly goes to Coach Colby's house to have sex with him for money, despite him clearly being a dangerous creep. Unsurprisingly, he kills her and has sex with her corpse.
- Took a Level in Jerkass:
- She was already acerbic in the original release, but Nicole was more often than not passive in how she treated the circumstances around her. She'd take advantage of a good opportunity to get ahead, such as her mother's worry about the situation allowing her to lie about Mr. White being a sexual predator for the sake of a massive settlement pay-out, and be unconcerned about Kylar killing himself, but she'd rarely knowingly screw people over entirely. Come the Re-Up, Nicole is much more proactive about the carnage she causes, up to and including ruining Megan's theater production and destroying both her reputation and her relationship with Hunter just because Megan was rude and bossy towards her, abusing Ari out of the mistaken belief that Ari would feel safe to leave the relationship at any time, stealing her mother's prescription drugs (though she wouldn't have known that her mother actually needed her beta-blockers), and most egregiously committing charity fraud by selling cocaine for a solid payday while claiming she was 'helping the community.'
- She's even worse in Flip Side, which puts more of an emphasis on how much of a toxic influence she is in Jecka's life now that her Sympathetic P.O.V. is removed. Even more than in Re-Up, she seems devoted to only making the most destructive choices possible and pushes Jecka into following her lead. In one route, she forces Jecka to leave an overdosed Jeffery to die so he doesn't rat them out, and in another, she unrepentantly sells sex services to Jecka's father after earlier calling Jecka a whore for selling herself out. Max Field would later admit to invoking this trope, as he had grown frustrated with the fanbase for mischaracterizing Nicole as a Jerk with a Heart of Gold worth emulating.
- Took a Level in Kindness:
- Nicole is noticeably more laid back in the animated short compare to the visual novels. Justified since she was drugged out on Jecka's stolen xanax.
- In the anime pilot, Nicole is once again more mellowed out compare to the games. This is best shown when Ari tells Jecka and Nicole that they can't eat or smoke in Hot Topic respectively, but only Jecka enacts Disproportionate Retribution on Ari through a series of pranks while Nicole chooses to help Ari in the end, granted for the price of a thousand dollar belt. Nicole also goes out of her way to make amends with Jecka for selling her out to mall security at the end of the episode.
- The following anime shorts also show her being a merely abrasive Alpha Bitch rather than villainously spiteful like she could be in the games. She still makes plenty of mean comments, but she doesn't exact any kind of disproportionate revenge against anyone for annoying her.
- Toxic Friend Influence: Jecka already could be a bully when she wanted to be, but Nicole often eggs her into joining her in messing with people's lives. And that's not when she's asking her to participate in activities with her like class skipping, shoplifting, and making crack. In a few routes, Jecka will even acknowledge this or come to the conclusion Nicole has crossed the line and abandon Nicole. The Hot Topic route in Flip Side shows what will happen to Jecka if she completely priorities her friendship with Nicole above her own needs. Essentially, Jecka herself slowly becomes another "Nicole" as she start to develop her own amoral tendencies and reliance on substance abuse to deal with her stressful situation. This is shown visually when Jecka is force to dye her hair black and wear punk-ish clothing just like Nicole for her new job at Hot Topic.
- Trademark Favorite Food: McDonald's french fries. It was mentioned by Jecka in Re-Up, that McDonald's french fries were among the things that Nicole is a "whore for," and her love for the snack food is made apparent in the animated short. Her line "Bitch, please give me a fry!" is acknowledged and used during the Kickstarter campaign to fund a pilot for the anime series.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: According to her mom, Nicole's been aware of the concept of sexual assault since the age of 12 if not earlier.
- True Art Is Angsty: When prompted by a frustrated Megan to think of a better play script after insulting Megan's own, Nicole basically comes up with a raunchier, more debased version of Rappaccini's Daughter where a woman has poisonous insides that makes anyone who molests her suffer. Emily thinks it's a great idea, while Megan is incensed at the idea and questions why the girl can't just have a power that prevents her from being molested altogether.
- Uncertain Doom: Emily's route in Re-Up ends with Emily dying of an overdose right there on the classroom floor as part of what she intended to be a Suicide Pact. While Nicole only goes into a seizure thanks to cutting her share of the pills with harmless vitamins to spare herself, downing a near lethal cocktail of pills no doubt took some years off her life or only helped her outlive Emily by mere hours.
- The Un-Favourite: Nicole's mother seems to prefer her older brother to her, if only because he is much easier to deal with than Nicole, because otherwise it is clear that she has given up on him. Notably, several routes will end with Nicole's mother kicking her out of the house, usually for getting expelled, yet she will never kick her son out despite being an unemployed Basement Dweller who preys on underage girls on the Internet.
- The Un-Smile: Nicole technically does have a smiling sprite, but she mostly uses it to manipulate others, and when it’s genuine, it comes across as either a Cheshire Cat Grin or a Psychotic Smirk as she’s preparing to ruin someone’s life.
- The Vamp: She is a very attractive girl who catches the attention of practically every boy and even man who comes across her. She's also a sociopath who is guaranteed to leverage this in order to get something out of them and then screw them over later.
- Villain Protagonist: Being a sociopathic teenager who finds enjoyment in other people's suffering, Nicole is not a very nice person. She can have a few redeeming traits depending on player choices, but those will usually result in the situation turning for the worse for her in a couple of endings.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: With Jecka, or at least as close as a sociopath can be. They engage in Snark-to-Snark Combat a lot, but Jecka is notably one of the very few characters Nicole never intentionally screws over long-term.
- Weirdness Magnet: A dark version. Nicole tends to get a lot of people around her to act on their worst behavior and invite absolute chaos. Jecka in Re-up and the intro of Flip Side lampshades just how eventful her life has gotten since becoming her friend.
- "What Now?" Ending: There are several endings in which Nicole's narration doesn't make it clear whether she kills herself, escapes homelessness, finds a place to stay after being in prison or in a mental institution/rehab center, suffers any kind of permanent medical damage after being roped into a suicide pact, and if she's going to be okay once things resolve.
- What the Hell, Hero?: "Hero" is a long stretch, but ironically enough, she did ultimately help stop a couple of petty crimes that were disrupting business. The anime pilot has her selling out Jecka during her crusade against Hot Topic to get a belt from Emily, who has connections with the Hot Topic manager, with Jecka not happy of being man-handled by mall security.