Nothing At All is a Good Song
Nothing At All is a song from How To Dance In Ohio the musical that I really really like. I have this whole animatic to it mapped out in my head, but I haven't got the skill or patience to actually draw it. But the song's singer Desmond Edwards said that they would want to read the outline I've written, so here it is! It's very long and I'm sorry.
I work in a lab at a hospital, and this is about my job.
I walk into the lab, into the break room, and put my purse down. On “It’s not like I’m shocked by the ableist cliches, but they do make me tired,” I reach into my purse and put on a barrette (which I actually wear everyday). The barrette then turns red and becomes a wisp of smoke following me.
“Do I only exist on this planet to make somebody else feel inspired?” I’m grabbing a lab coat from the closet when the wisp flies away from me, I turn to follow it and see one of my coworkers waving at me. Said coworker is drawn with no eyes or nose, just a mouth and eyebrows - everyone in the animatic is drawn like this except for myself. I wave awkwardly back.
“I’m no object of pity, and if that’s what you see, then clearly you aren’t seeing me” the camera circles around me, showing a hallway that looks like I’ve made it longer for dramatic effect but that actually is that long, and then pans around so you can see my face as I start walking down the hall towards the core lab.
I pretend to be my own OCs a lot, so the characters I turn into are my own characters. As I turn into each one, the wisp of red smoke becomes an article of clothing on them. First is Jaimy, who has a big red bow. Then Tris, who has a red ring, and finally Jada, who has a red headband. As the line gets to “today’s look is nothing, nothing at all” I fade back into my normal self with the wisp of smoke at my shoulders, and walk over to my work station. I type at my computer with the wisp curling over my wrists, I grab a pneumatic tube that’s just come in with the smoke curling around the tube and my hands.
“I try to have patience meeting folks where they’re at” I sit at my chair talking to my boss, who is on one knee in front of me because she's really tall. “But this gets under my skin” she stands up to walk away. “Cause if you’re writing about me, then getting to know me should be where you begin” my boss goes over to one of my coworkers, a guy who acts like and is treated like he’s a supervisor even though he’s not, and says something. The two of them look directly at me, then back at each other.
“It’s so condescending assuming the worst” We see my hand reaching towards a piece of paper on a printer, which is me attempting to do an assignment that I’m capable of doing but don’t have permission to do. The wisp of smoke curls around my hand and pulls it back, forcing me to turn away and see my boss. I glare daggers at her but that’s all I can do.
“When I’m Wanda Maximoff” My glare fades and I turn into my OC Taylor, the red wisp becoming a wand in my hand. “I can change my own reality” using the wand, I open up a centrifuge and remove the tubes of blood to float in front of me. Unlike most of the animatic, which is black and white, the tubes are in color. They’ve been spun already so you can clearly see the red blood cells at the bottom, the separator gel, and the plasma/serum on top. Some of the tubes have light green tops and some have gold tops (if you’re curious what I’m talking about, look up centrifuged blood gold top). “When I’m Gaga I’m ready to rehearse” I change into my OC Jodie, stepping forward into a pirouette, the red wisp turns into a rehearsal skirt, and the tubes of blood are still floating in front of me. “When I’m Miles Morales I really do believe I am a superhero in the multiverse” I change into my OC Cytherea and start to float, the wisp becomes glowing red eyes, and for a moment the tubes of blood turn into crystals in front of me. “But todays look is nothing, nothing at all” I morph back into myself and come back down to the ground. The tubes of blood become tubes of blood again and return to my hands. The red wisp goes back to being a red wisp at my shoulders.
“Then come the voices of doubt saying right on cue” we see the core lab, where my coworkers are doing regular core lab stuff, like typing at computers and putting stuff into machines. “This world will never make space for people like you” my coworkers all look at me, now looking angry, and now shaded red. I take a step back. “I see my past rejections framed and hung on the wall” The tubes of blood fall out of my hands, not like I dropped them or anything but just like in a floaty way. I also start to float as the background becomes black behind me, and we see representations drawn in red of various crappy things that have happened to me. This includes F’s on papers, children laughing at me, and mean quotes people have said to me. They scroll by in the background.
“And I wish I felt nothing, nothing at all” I start crying and I curl up into a ball. The background changes to say in giant red letters “Autism.” But then the red disappears from the actual word, turning it white; the red becomes becomes the wisp again, circling around my whole body. “Nothing at all” the black background fades, leaving me in a cloud of red. “So sick of good intentions, that only make me feel small” still surrounded by the cloud. I look up and see the lab in front of me, except I am literally small now, and it is huge. “Your good intentions all add up to” I fall to my knees with my hands over my ears. “Nothing at all” suddenly I am normal sized again, holding the tubes of blood like I was before. I shake my head a little bit and look startled, as if I was trying to shake myself back to reality after zoning out.
In the instrumental break, I walk over to one of the stations in the core lab and put the tubes of blood in the rack. Then I’m seen getting my purse and leaving the lab.
“That’s why tomorrow night I will not be at the formal dance” we see me driving home, coming inside, and walking upstairs to pull out my laptop. “though I’ve worked hard to get there all this year.” The red wisp settles around my shoulders, still weird and wispy but not floating anymore, just resting. I take a deep breath and open my laptop. “That’s right, tomorrow night I will be doing my first livestream” I open up a zoom meeting entitled ‘Ableism in the workplace’ and click join, “to discuss the controversy further here!” I wave at the people in the meeting, and you can see the clock behind me displaying the time 5:30. “Cause the whole conversation” we see a girl wearing noise cancelling headphones talking on the screen. “Needs a huge overhaul.” We see a boy talking on the screen. “And if we simply do nothing.” I wave again, and you can see that the clock reads 6:30 now. I close the laptop and look sad. The red wisp starts to float again “nothing will change at all.” The wisp becomes a single red tear which falls down my cheek.
In the final instrumental, I wipe the tear away. My hand stays on my face as I move it up to rub at my head, like I’m pushing my hair away from my face. When I pull my hand away, the red is gone and it has turned back into the barrette that I put on at the beginning. I set the barrette down on top of my laptop, alongside my employee badge, and stand up to walk away. The end.
Don't worry though, this makes my job sound awful, but it's actually really cool and most of my coworkers don't suck. This is a picture taken for lab week a few weeks ago, I'm the white girl sitting in the front :)
@wakanda-never I hope you like it! I know it isn't exactly what the song is about, but it's what it makes me feel. Thank you for everything you did with HTDIO, it's one of my favorite musicals ever because it makes me feel so seen.
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