#imo texacali is the relationship that cali deserves (/neg)

[mur-art]

pls talk to me more about calivada's dynamic <3

You know I can talk about my interpretation of Calivada all day; don't tempt me

tl;dr It's complicated. They're alcohol-fueled "friends" with benefits but it's kind of one-sided on California's end with him somewhat taking advantage of Nevada and disregarding his serious feelings.

Let me be clear, this is not a particularly healthy relationship (but we're talking about everyone's favorite shitshow, California, here so no surprise) On their good days, they're a chaotic team, working together to be extremely bad influences on each other and everyone else. On their bad days, they are the queens of extremely petty, catty drama and have to make their issues everyone else's problem.

This is my playlist for them.

LONG nsfw-ish rambling under the cut:

I see their relationship going back a long time and it's been complicated since the beginning. My personal HC is that California was a strong influence on Nevada when he was younger. During Nevada's silver boom, most of the first miners to settle in the area were from California. So California, who at this time was extremely jaded and reckless, came blazing into Nevada's life like a supernova.

Almost instantly, their relationship was based on doing a lot of stupid shit together. In those early days, they consumed more alcohol than is humanly possible and some other hard drugs that they refuse to talk about. There were dumb decisions made. Nevada has lots of blackmail material from those days, which gives him leverage in the relationship when he gets mad at California.

Their relationship these days is still based on doing dumb shit together. Nevada can bring out Cali's fun, reckless side. He can make Cali loosen up like no one else can. When they're driving 100 mph through the desert together singing to every song that comes on at the top of their lungs he can almost forget that California is an annoying shithead. And California looks so beautiful waking up next to him with glitter on his face in the morning after a crazy night.

But very few of Nevada's relationships are equal partnerships, and Calivada is no exception. California takes advantage of him to an extent. He treats Nevada like a "fun" time fling and rarely gives him the opportunity to talk about his feelings in any meaningful way. He expects Nevada to be there for him to dump all of his problems onto, but never returns the favor.

Nevada resents California a bit for some things that happened in their history. He sees Cali as kind of a rich, spoiled kid who got everything handed to him in life (whether that perception is true or not is beside the point). Meanwhile, Nevada had to struggle a lot. The silver boom turned to bust and unlike California's gold rush, there was no lasting wealth for him. By the early 1900s, Nevada's nickname was "Beautiful Desert of Buried Hopes" because the boom towns had turned to ghost towns and things looked bleak. Add in the trauma he faced during the Cold War with nuclear testing (something that Gov would never dare do to his "precious" California, he notes frequently) and generally feeling like he doesn't have control of his own destiny.

And yet, California never seems to care about any of that, nor even thinks to ask. To him, Nevada is there for a fun one night stand or weekend fling. The less Nevada talks about his deep feelings and serious matters, the better. But of course, California gets sloppy drunk and talks about all of his, expecting Nevada to listen and validate him. It leaves Nevada feeling used and alone (but it's okay, he's used to it-- at least that's what he tells himself.)

Why does he keep going back to California? The nsfw answer is: the sex is really good. Like earth-shakingly good (no pun intended). And they do have fun together, as long as they're sufficiently intoxicated.

I could literally go on about these guys all day but I'll shut up now.

#imo texacali is the relationship that cali deserves (/neg) #caliyork is the relationship that cali deserves (/pos) #and calivada is the relationship that NO ONE deserves but yet here we are #long post #mur headcanons #wttt calivada #wttt headcanons