“i’ve grown a mouth so sharp and cruel it’s all that i can give to you my dear” - 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: 5’9
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)
“when everyone’s comments turn into scorn, when everyone lies and says be who you are, maybe i wanna be a cryptid.” - 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 can’t.
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. she’s never understood why the world hates people who are different. wasn’t it taught in elementary that if everyone was the same life would be boring?
contentious. she’ll pick a fight–or argument at least–if 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
“nya’s 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 didn’t believe her so she beat the snot outta him in the DX parking lot couple months after she moved in. that’s when they came up with noa so she could fight in rumbles with us.”
“nya’s an absolute mess, but she’s fun to hang around, long as what you’re doin' isn’t too dangerous or illegal. she don’t drink or smoke but not in a way like she’s tryna make you feel like a bad person for it, which is nice i guess. she likes getting after me for shit, but it’s fun to watch her argue with people, yknow shit's real when she don’t get too loud. she’ll mean what she’s saying and you hear it. real funny til it's you she's talkin' at.”
“i don’t think she knows but the gang wouldn’t be the same without her. she’s 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, won’t yell about it to ya, just keeps explainin’ it different til you get it. she won’t talk about nothin she knows bothers you either. if you wanna talk about it you can but she ain’t gonna tease you about something you really ain’t 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.”
—KEITH “TWO BIT” MATTHEWS, ‘65
“i love nya to bits. i don’t wanna go into details cause i might get emotional but she’s an amazing girl. she’s the reason i’m passin’ half my classes, she’s part of why i ain’t sleeping on the streets half the time, and she’s just real sweet. she also won’t judge you for nothin’ if she cares ‘bout you even if it’s real weird, like the weird stuff tommy and dean do. she reminds me of paintin’ with water colors, sometimes it takes getting used to but once you do you start painting with ‘em a lot. or she reminds me of green…yeah she’s definitely green to me. i dunno just how i think.”
—RUSSEL “RUSTY” MORGAN, ‘65
“nya’s an amazing girl. i dunno, at first i was a little scared of ‘er from what two-bit says ‘bout her but after i actually got to know her she’s really a sweetheart. she’s still scary, sure, but not to people that don’t deserve it. i’ve seen her blow up in some dumb socs faces, especially when one of us gets jumped or beat up. i’m also just glad she’s able to get through to Rusty’s 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 member’s cousin.”
“nya..? oh! that one greaser girl! two’s cousin! oh she’s great! yeah, i think i scared ‘er at first. i got a reputation with the greaser girls. a lot of em call me names and stuff but she didn’t. she wanted to get to know me. she lets me talk ‘bout the beatles or elvis or whatever else i wanna talk ‘bout. she thinks i’m crazy for playin’ a bunch of instruments but i think i impressed her. maybe she’s into me. i doubt it though but i can’t blame ‘er. whatever guy she ends up with will be lucky.”
“used to be one of the rotten ones, and i liked you for that." - anthems for a seventeen year old girl, yeule
two-bit matthews — cousin.
nya’s an only child, and didn’t 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, nya’s car belongs to both of them. two bit is a liar. he also won’t 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 didn’t get in trouble for giving him a black eye or something) because she insisted she could fight and he didn’t believe her. he cares about her a lot and sees her as another sister.
eloise matthews — cousin.
eloise is two bit’s 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 don’t 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-bit’s included in that), and just mess around. nya’s mom appreciates it because it’s one of the only times nya “acts like a girl.” nya is also eloise’s wallet. she will do anything for that child and eloise knows it.
marilynn matthews — mother.
nya and her mom don’t get on well. her mom grew up not exactly rich but a lot like the soc kids of tulsa. she’s very strict about things like social norms and mannerisms and “ladylike” behavior. so basically everything that nya doesn’t give a shit about. she’s also annoyingly intolerant (homophobe and racist, classist, misogynist), and will call nya “flower power” if she defends any sort of minority which is the 60’s version of “woke (/deragatory).” doesn’t like that nya hangs out with the gang so much because according to her they’re 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 she’s got so much going on and it’s one more thing her mom values over her sanity.
howard matthews — 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 wife’s 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 he’s an adult now and can see from a parental side, he knows how to comfort her when she’s 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 – 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 – 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.