âiâve grown a mouth so sharp and cruel itâs all that i can give to you my dearâ - tongues and teeth, the crane wives
full name: Nya Rosalie Matthews
nicknames: nini, n (both only used by family members) doll/dollface (tucker)
birthdate + age: october 31, 1947; 17
gender: female
height: 5â9
orientation: straight and if the labels had existed then grayaro, grayace, and demigirl
birthplace: ririe, idaho
social status: greaser
languages: english, very broken welsh
parents: howard matthews, marilynn matthews (nee. cadell)
âwhen everyoneâs comments turn into scorn, when everyone lies and says be who you are, maybe i wanna be a cryptid.â - cryptid, ratwyfe
stubborn. this girl takes no shit and does what she wants. best way to get her to do something is for you to tell her she canât.
capable. her dad was a karate instructor part time in idaho and taught her a bunch of stuff at home so she could defend herself.
accepting. sheâs never understood why the world hates people who are different. wasnât it taught in elementary that if everyone was the same life would be boring?
contentious. sheâll pick a fightâor argument at leastâif she feels like it. normally not completely unprovoked, but not really warranted all the time. mostly with soc boys or her mom.
LIKES photography, long drives to nowhere, cutting hair, fighting, painting, pasta of all forms, being outside, beating up socs
DISLIKES her mom, entitled people, expectations, sleeping, math homework, school, social norms, bugs, sandy, jennifer, money
"every time i open my mouth i think, wow, what a loud noise." - the hand, annabelle dinda
ânyaâs pretty okay. a lot less straight laced and more relaxed than most girls, or at least the ones i know. still acts like a girl but in a chaotic way. she used to live way up in idaho, learned to fight from her dad pretty good. better than most the gang, in fact. two-bit didnât believe her so she beat the snot outta him in the DX parking lot couple months after she moved in. thatâs when they came up with noa so she could fight in rumbles with us.â
ânyaâs an absolute mess, but sheâs fun to hang around, long as what youâre doin' isnât too dangerous or illegal. she donât drink or smoke but not in a way like sheâs tryna make you feel like a bad person for it, which is nice i guess. she likes getting after me for shit, but itâs fun to watch her argue with people, yknow shit's real when she donât get too loud. sheâll mean what sheâs saying and you hear it. real funny til it's you she's talkin' at.â
âi donât think she knows but the gang wouldnât be the same without her. sheâs the kind of person to drive you up the walls for the hell of it but will sit down on a phone call for hours to help you with your homework, wonât yell about it to ya, just keeps explaininâ it different til you get it. she wonât talk about nothin she knows bothers you either. if you wanna talk about it you can but she ainât gonna tease you about something you really ainât okay with. good influence on all of us i think, we'd all be assholes if she wasn't constantly at us about rude comments.â
âKEITH âTWO BITâ MATTHEWS, â65
âi love nya to bits. i donât wanna go into details cause i might get emotional but sheâs an amazing girl. sheâs the reason iâm passinâ half my classes, sheâs part of why i ainât sleeping on the streets half the time, and sheâs just real sweet. she also wonât judge you for nothinâ if she cares âbout you even if itâs real weird, like the weird stuff tommy and dean do. she reminds me of paintinâ with water colors, sometimes it takes getting used to but once you do you start painting with âem a lot. or she reminds me of greenâŚyeah sheâs definitely green to me. i dunno just how i think.âÂ
âRUSSEL âRUSTYâ MORGAN, â65
ânyaâs an amazing girl. i dunno, at first i was a little scared of âer from what two-bit says âbout her but after i actually got to know her sheâs really a sweetheart. sheâs still scary, sure, but not to people that donât deserve it. iâve seen her blow up in some dumb socs faces, especially when one of us gets jumped or beat up. iâm also just glad sheâs able to get through to Rustyâs stubborn ass. he really needs someone that he can talk to, even if i wish it was someone in our gang instead of a different gang memberâs cousin.âÂ
ânya..? oh! that one greaser girl! twoâs cousin! oh sheâs great! yeah, i think i scared âer at first. i got a reputation with the greaser girls. a lot of em call me names and stuff but she didnât. she wanted to get to know me. she lets me talk âbout the beatles or elvis or whatever else i wanna talk âbout. she thinks iâm crazy for playinâ a bunch of instruments but i think i impressed her. maybe sheâs into me. i doubt it though but i canât blame âer. whatever guy she ends up with will be lucky.âÂ
âused to be one of the rotten ones, and i liked you for that." - anthems for a seventeen year old girl, yeule
two-bit matthews â cousin.
nyaâs an only child, and didnât really grow up with many friends, but she was pen pals with two, despite his handwriting being barely legible. when she moved, he introduced her to the gang and they grew into much more of a sibling dynamic. also according to two bit, nyaâs car belongs to both of them. two bit is a liar. he also wonât let go of that one time nya beat the absolute shit out of him (in other words flipped him on his back in a couple seconds so she didnât get in trouble for giving him a black eye or something) because she insisted she could fight and he didnât believe her. he cares about her a lot and sees her as another sister.
eloise matthews â cousin.
eloise is two bitâs kid sister, and was so excited when nya moved in because now she had an almost big sister. nya babysits when her aunt and uncle are gone because they donât always trust two bit to do it alone, and god do those girls have fun, especially since eloise discovered nail polish is a thing. they fingerpaint, they bake, they do nails (sometimes two-bitâs included in that), and just mess around. nyaâs mom appreciates it because itâs one of the only times nya âacts like a girl.â nya is also eloiseâs wallet. she will do anything for that child and eloise knows it.
marilynn matthews â mother.
nya and her mom donât get on well. her mom grew up not exactly rich but a lot like the soc kids of tulsa. sheâs very strict about things like social norms and mannerisms and âladylikeâ behavior. so basically everything that nya doesnât give a shit about. sheâs also annoyingly intolerant (homophobe and racist, classist, misogynist), and will call nya âflower powerâ if she defends any sort of minority which is the 60âs version of âwoke (/deragatory).â doesnât like that nya hangs out with the gang so much because according to her theyâre bad influences and nya should find some nice girls her age to hang out with. she loves nya deep down but has so many control issues that mess shit up. very insistent that nya keeps up her welsh speaking skills because of heritage and nya wants to but sheâs got so much going on and itâs one more thing her mom values over her sanity.
howard matthews â father.
howard is the emotional support parent, surprisingly. he grew up poor as dirt, cut classes all the time and had a full time job by the time he was 16. got bullied for practically everything. he was the broke kid in a rich neighborhood, and that led him to sympathize a lot more with nya and the other greaser kids despite his wifeâs judgement of them. nya would much rather be around her dad than her mom just because he gets her a lot more. he gets her feeling lonely, and useless, and out of place. and since heâs an adult now and can see from a parental side, he knows how to comfort her when sheâs feeling that way too. he taught self defense and that helped a lot with them bonding while she was growing up. he's still a bit tough love about things, but he's a lot more there for her and rusty than marilynn is.
rusty morgan â foster/adoptive brother.
rusty was her assigned freshman to show around school the first week. he was living with robert at the time and felt a bit like a burden. he asked if she could call to help him with homework sometimes, since he didn't always have someone to help him, and she ended up getting called when he got jumped bad for liking a boy. her family helped take care of him while robert was at work, and later her and howard helped him escape his dad's place when his dad basically kidnapped him at a mcdonald's. after his dad went to jail, he stayed with the matthews and the garage with a broken-shut door was insulated that had previously been nya's art studio was split so rusty could have a bedroom. pencils are a rare commodity now that there's two artists in that house, and they developed a very sibling-like dynamic. nya is the wallet and the shoulder to cry on and very overbearing, and rusty is the little brother ever⢠in the best way.
tucker sherman â boyfriend
tucker is one of the robbers, like rusty, and despite being aware of each other, him and nya actually met properly when rusty got jumped the first time and nya got called. tucker really liked the beatles, and music in general, considering he plays like a hundred instruments. he had a history of missing social cues, being "too much" for previous girlfriends, and his relationships were on several occasions intentionally wrecked with fake advice from a friend of the current girlfriend. he was nya's first actual crush, and she had no idea how to process that. once he realized he also liked her, he'd gotten to a point where he was so sick of girls breaking up with him that he ended things a couple weeks in to the relationship while drunk, and the week or two following was an emotional rollercoaster for the both of them. after getting back together, things got more stable, given that nya doesn't expect much and tends to have too much empathy for her own good, it's pretty difficult for whatever tucker does to be too much, or for a misunderstanding between the two to lead to an argument. nya's pretty good at reassuring people once she's aware of what all the social cues she missed meant, but she also requires a lot of reassurance to know she's not making anyone uncomfortable. tucker is good at that. tucker enjoys doing that. he likes making her feel important and loved, and she likes knowing she's not a waste of space.