#𝐎𝐏𝐇𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐀 : about . ⧽ i want to go home.

[kinderdays]

ophelia cage + tv tropes

[kinderdays]

lovely to be rained on with you ...

ophelia the lumineers・two sleeping at last・sunrise norah jones・blue skies birdy・run daddy run miranda lambert & the pistol annies・orpheus sara bareilles・in case you don’t live forever ben platt・ceilings lizzy mcalpine・sad beautiful tragic taylor swift・almost heaven jeremiah lloyd harmon・any chance carly bannister・baby mine madison malone・chinese satellite phoebe bridgers・running up that hill (a deal with god) kate bush・lovely billie eilish & khalid・epiphany taylor swift・tomorrow will be kinder the secret sisters

ophelia by the lumineers. oh, ophelia, heaven help the fool who falls in love. this song was added to her playlist largely because of it’s name alone, but also for these lyrics.  they represent ophelia’s feelings towards her own reality, feeling foolish for falling in love and getting pregnant so quickly.  she doesn’t have regrets necessarily, especially regarding her child, but she does feel like she could have done things differently if she hadn’t been so blindly desperate for love in a time when she felt so dark and alone.

two by sleeping at last. tell me, is something wrong? if something's wrong, you can count on me. you know I'll take my heart clean apart, if it helps yours beat. this song would be first on the list if ophelia by the lumineers had a different name.  two so truthfully represents ophelia’s personality, someone who always puts other’s wellbeing before her own.  she struggles to look inward and heal herself but finds it almost easy to do it for others.

sunrise by norah jones. now the night will throw its cover down on me again. oh, and if i'm right it's the only way to bring me back. this song represents ophelia’s happy and idealistic childhood.  though she grew up during war and famine, her parents worked tirelessly to make her blind to the horrors outside her door.  they showered her with love and affection.  she had friends, she had warmth, she had innocence.

run daddy run by miranda lambert & the pistol annies. daddy can you hear the devil drawing near like a bullet from a gun, run daddy run. saw that dark cloud coming from a million miles away. oh how I’ve dreaded this god forsaken day. the loss of kenneth cage was a huge turning point for ophelia, so a song that touched on that moment specifically felt important to the her playlist.  run daddy run has such an eerie yet tender feel which exemplifies this moment in her life, desperate for her dad to come home to her.

blue skies by birdy. i never saw the sun shining so bright, never saw things going so right. noticing the days hurrying bad, when you're in love, oh my, how they fly. the year 2043 is a dark one for ophelia.  though it’s been many years since she lost her father she now grieves a new death- that of her brother.  she has lost two members of her small family, she feels so broken and betrayed by the world around her that once treated her so kindly.  and then she meets max and for the first time in months she feels blue poking through the stormy skies.

orpheus by sara bareilles. you miss the world, the one you knew. the one where everything made sense because you didn't know the truth, that's how it works ’til the bottom drops out and we learn we're all just hunters seeking solid ground // i’ll show you good, restore your faith. i’ll try and somehow make a meaning of the poison in this place. ophelia loves maxym dearly, and for a few fleeting months everything feels a little bit better, she feels hopeful.  this song feels like her coming of age anthem- she has grown to realize her world is a cruel one, but she is desperate to find the good and to make the world good for others.

in case you don’t live forever by ben platt. you put all your faith in my dreams, you gave me the world that i wanted. what did I do to deserve you? i follow your steps with my feet, i walk on the road that you started. i need you to know that i heard you, every word. this song is dedicated to the people ophelia loves, especially those she loved and lost.  to her father and to gil who taught her so many things, she wants them to know that she listened.  she wants them to know that she is eternally grateful for their lessons and their love.  it’s also in part for max, who gave her such beauty if even for a short time, and gave her something so precious she could never repay him.

ceilings by lizzy mcalpine. but it's not real and you don't exist and I can't recall the last time i was kissed. it hits me in the car and it feels like the end of a movie i've seen before. perhaps the most heartbreaking song on the list, ceilings combines perspectives from both ophelia and her mother katya.  like mother like daughter, they are now bonded by the loss of the fathers of their children.  they have both suffered the unimaginable and are now left with a child to raise alone on top of their heartbreak.  this song tells of someone who is happy in a relationship, only to realize it’s gone.  while ophelia struggles with her grief, her mother recognizes every emotion.  this is a film she’s seen before.

sad beautiful tragic by taylor swift. we had a beautiful magic love there. what a sad, beautiful, tragic love affair // in dreams, i meet you in warm conversation // and time is taking its sweet time erasing you

almost heaven by jeremiah lloyd harmon. almost heaven, lovers laying side by side but when we reach forever will there be a place where you and I may find home? so I keep a candle burning and I pray to see that saint i knew for certain. but it's just my own reflection now. these two songs further examine ophelia’s grief in losing her first real love.  while she had smaller flirtations and teen flings, she considers maxym to be the love of her life.  almost heaven is also the first of three songs in this playlist that touch on ophelia’s relationship with god and religion, something largely absent from her childhood but something she now secretly hope exists- a place where she can see her loved ones again.

any chance by carly bannister. i’ve tried my hand at hiding, but like a shadow it’ll find me. all there’s left to do is wait // fear has a key and he stays and never leaves but I beg and I plead if you have what i need. ophelia doesn’t consider herself to be brave.  her father often told her to have courage, but she feels like she’s failing him.  she’s so scared of what’s out there- what can harm the people she loves.  in a sense, she doesn’t fear her own death.  she’s much more scared of what death can touch.  it takes and it takes.

baby mine by madison malone. baby mine dry your eyes. rest your head close to my heart never to part baby of mine. the role of mother is perhaps the one ophelia was always meant to play.  she has a newfound sense of duty and an already growing feeling of love for her child.  she finds it challenging to share her body with this new life and also an overwhelming grief, but she is doing what she always does- survive.  

chinese satellite by phoebe bridgers. but you know i'd stand on the corner embarrassed with a picket sign if it meant I would see you when i die. sometimes when I can't sleep it's just a matter of time before i'm hearing things. swore i could feel you through the walls but that's impossible.

running up that hill (a deal with god) - kate bush. and if i only could i'd make a deal with god and i'd get him to swap our places. i'd be runnin' up that road, be runnin' up that hill with no problems. these are two additional songs that touch on the growing complexities with ophelia’s relationship with god and the idea of an afterlife.  growing up she was always encouraged to approach with world from a scientific viewpoint.  she’s always understood the cycle of life and death to be inevitable, and at a certain point was somewhat removed from it as she began to study and practice medicine at such a young age.  however the death of her father triggered a shift in her beliefs, she began to see death differently.  she began to yearn for an ideology that told her she would see him again.  the losses of gil and maxym only exaggerated this desire.  she struggles to have a faith, how could a god allow this?  but she’s desperate for a heaven.  

lovely by billie eilish & khalid. oh, i hope some day i'll make it out of here even if it takes all night or a hundred years. need a place to hide, but i can't find one near. wanna feel alive, outside i can't fight my fear. this is a deeply depressing song with a sweet title, which is perhaps the perfect metaphor for ophelia.  she’s an incredibly sad person with immense grief and trauma, but on the exterior she’s nothing but lovely.  beyond that, this song describes a desire to get out, and though it may be referring to a state of mind, for ophelia that sense is also very literal.  in her dreams she imagines an escape from the falls, somewhere she can be less afraid.  but she’d never go somewhere without the people she loves, nor does she have the courage to brave the unknown outside the zone’s walls.

epiphany - taylor swift. only 20 minutes to sleep but you dream of some epiphany, just one single glimpse of relief to make some sense of what you've seen. ophelia loves to help people, but being a medic in the apocalypse isn’t for the faint of heart.  she’s constantly surrounded by pain, she watches people go through their worst moments.  it takes a toll.  she tries not to let it affect her, and when it does she tries not to let it show.  but sometimes it’s too much.

tomorrow will be kinder - the secret sisters. often I wonder why i try hoping for an end. sorrow weighs my shoulders down and trouble haunts my mind but i know the the present will not last and tomorrow will be kinder. this is the song from which ophelia’s blog gets its name.  It describes a hopeful mindset, one that knows that things are awful, but has faith that a new day is coming.  ophelia is by no means an optimist, but she has to have hope to carry on, hope that kinder days are coming her way.

[kinderdays]

full name: katarina sophia cage // status: alive

can i handle the seasons of my life?

born to immigrant parents, katarina was raised a fighter.  since she was a girl she’s had fire in her veins.  she sticks up for the underdog.  in grade school she once spread super glue stolen from her teacher’s desk on the seat of a student who had been picking on a classmate.  she was never caught.  this would one of the first instances of katya displaying her passion for helping others- even if sometimes means breaking the rules.  she isn’t afraid to do what it takes to protect the people she loves, or anyone she sees who needs it.  when they are running low on medical supplies while working under fedra, it’s her that suggests they seek other ways of getting the medicine they needed.  it’s her who contacts the orquídeas.  

'til the landslide brought me down

katya is sharp, tactful.  when she first meets alexei volkov, she uses her maiden name, carefully slipping into a touch of the slavic accent she heard on her parents tongue growing up.  she thinks that maybe, if he thinks there is a chance she is russian, he will regard her more highly, and in turn favor her family.  she thinks perhaps it is her chance at a bit of protection.  years later she will wonder if it worked, if her husband being selected for a mission in jackson was seen as an honor.  he sent his own brother, after all.  maybe he was meant to come home a hero.  she’s never introduced herself as a mensik again.

children get older and i'm getting older too

she is vengeful- doesn’t quickly forgive and forget.  she isn’t easily fooled.  it’s almost like she can smell trouble- sense it in the distance.  hard work is no stranger to her.  she’s never slowed, even in her older age.  in the past few years she’s developed worsening arthritis in her hands and wrists which as made her work more difficult.  more than the pain, she hates being less useful.  it’s taken a toll.  she refuses to take medication, insisting everything the infirmary has goes to those who need it more.

playlist –– kingdom come by the civil wars // garden song by pheobe bridgers // the mother by brandi carlise // into the fire by thirteen senses // landslide by fleetwood mac

character parallels –– meredith grey (grey’s anatomy), juliet burke (lost)

full name: kenneth alexander cage // status: deceased

come stop your crying it will be alright

his choice to become a doctor comes from a life of looking out for others.  intensely caring and tender, he’s never put himself first.  when he meets a clever nurse with a spark in her eyes, kenneth is instantly hooked.  she asks him out for coffee and the rest is history.  a love story for the ages, perhaps.  but they’re happily ever after is short lived.  soon they are torn from their homes, thrust into a new far more dangerous world.  they don’t hesitate to take action, saving those they can. 

this bond between us can’t be broken

their daughter isn’t exactly planned.  the couple has always wanted children but under the circumstances they weren’t so sure.  but of course as soon as katya tells her husband the news he is overjoyed.  she is born and he names her ophelia.  she captures his heart in an instant, and he knows he will never love anything more than this child.  he wants to protect her, he wants to prepare her for the grueling world she faces.  from a young age he begins to teach her everything he possibly can.  she knows the name for every bone in the human body by the time she’s nine.  by age eleven she knows how to make a tourniquet.  the three of them are a tight-knit unit, loyal only to each other.  and when the son of fallen friends returns to the falls, they don’t hesitate to take him in, they love him as their own.

i may not be with you but you've got to hold on

on a hot summer day, kenneth is selected to be apart of a team headed to jackson town.  he is not a fighter, but he knows it’s not really a request.  and when gil is also picked for the mission, the answer is clear.  he goes with only one task in mind- bring his soldiers home alive.  armed with a medkit and a pistol, they head into the unknown.  of course, they would have no idea the horror that awaited them in wyoming.  they never stood a chance.  shrapnel and bullets flying, kenneth is hit.  ringing in his ears, blood seeping from a wound in his chest, he doesn’t feel the pain.  he can hardly breath but adrenaline pumps through him as he crawls to his boy, applies pressure to his wounds, wraps him tightly.  you’re gonna be okay, i’ve got you, you’re gonna be okay, keep your eyes open.  and perhaps that could have been true for both of them, but he’s lost so much blood.  the color is drained from his face and only now does he lift up his shirt and realize a bullet has gone straight through him.  air escapes him, red stains his lips.  his last words are to his son, don’t worry about me, go.  a part of him wants to tell him to take care of his girls, but knows he doesn’t need to nor does he wish to impose that pressure as a dying wish.  a last act of empathy.  kenneth is a man of science but in his last moments he looks up at the sky and silently thanks god for giving him enough time to save him.  he doesn’t die alone.

playlist –– you’ll be in my heart by phil collins // fix you by coldplay // right by you by john legend // i just called to say i love you by john prine // bring him home from les miserables

character parallels –– jack shephard (lost), sully (monster’s inc.)

[kinderdays]

𝐭𝐚𝐬𝐤 𝐧𝐨. 𝐭𝐰𝐨 – 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐥𝐬

honorable mentions: jane bennet, susan pevensie, juliet capulet, & marmee march

[kinderdays]

𝐨𝐩𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐚 𝐜𝐚𝐠𝐞 

biography

pinterest board

playlist

[kinderdays]

tag dump !! ophelia