A critic of the storytelling in "K-12". Part 2.
The Principal.
Where we left off, Cry Baby and Kelly just had a fight at the playground, and proceding to get punished. They're sent to the principal's office, or to wait there and don't do anything.
Side note, but with how stereotipical Kelly is, i'm surprised she's not also the principal's daughter; i talked briefly about how the plot would be more interesting if Kelly herself was a empath instead of it being reserved to the "good quirky girls", now, imagine Kelly AS an empath, AND as the principal's daughter, perhaps taking the son's role (i don't remember his name, not that it matters much) and being the main villain!
BUT she's just there to show how "better" and "mature" Cry Baby is. Just a misogynistic stereotipe of a "bad" girl with CB being "good" girl, it's disappoiting, really.
Back to the plot, we find out the principal is corrupt through his bigotry, firing a trans teacher simply for being who she is.
Now, i think there were better ways to showcase this. Melanie probably chose this approach for additional glaze points: "look, i made my villain transphobic! Ain't i good, guys?" Especially considering miss Harper NEVER makes another appearance again, remaining just an asset for some "woke" points.
We also find that boy who was taken out of class, and in a true "tell don't show" fashion, he PERFECLTY explains to the audience how they're being mind controlled into staying.
I find it weird how this toddler knows EVERYTHING about this sistem; robbing us of genuinely cool creepy scenes where we realize he's... different.
Continuing this trend, Cry Baby learns everything about the principal's life just by seeing his transphobia apparently.
He's also greedy, and mistreats the students, but the "tell don't show" approach doens't make us care much; we already know EVERYTHING about him with one boring piece of dialogue from someone who shoudn't even know so much so perfeclty.
There's no mistery; no emotion; no suspense; we just... know. Casually.
Anyway, maybe the fight with Kelly made Cry Baby go back to her roots and don't care about that "unfair advantage" anymore, as she tries to poison the principal, who is sadly saved.
Now, WHAT was in that syringe? WHY is it stronger than Cry Baby's powers? Can't she do ANYTHING? Is it like, a syrup version of empath power that can ALSO do anything? Is this how they can control the students?
OR is magic just normal in this universe? What makes empaths special, then? Not even immortality, as we already saw ghosts.
Now, Melanie probably didn't think about ANY of this, she just wanted her OCs to have cool powers, and didn't care about that would affect the worldbuilding. I'm not mad, Melanie, just disappointed.
Show and tell.
Cry Baby goes to class, maybe a year later, it's really vague, and gets turned into a puppet, now, she's Melanie Martinez singing about how hard fame is.
I respect that, but WHAT DOES IS HAS TO DO WITH THE STORY? How does it help the plot? And again, HOW DID SHE BECAME A PUPPET? Is magic really normal here? Anyway, nothing much to say since we just have Melanie here, nothing story related.
CB falls into the floor, and is taken by the nurses.
Nurse's office.
For me, this is the Pity Party of this album/story: a bop where the main character actually has feelings, and that i relate to.
Now onto the story: we see the school's powers being stronger than empaths again, since Cry Baby can't become human again on her own, needing Angelita's help. Don't think much about it, you'll only get pissed off by the total lack of explanation.
The nurses see the scene. They try... to supposedly punish the girls by dancing? According to the lyrics, they're trying to take them away from the school.
So much for "so we can't leave", huh? Perhaps they're scared because they're empaths and can be a threat, but besides this scene supposedly being a long time after class fight, we of course don't get an explanation.
Also they're drugged with something that MIGHT be stronger than them but, yk.
AND they're fighting against it, even though they supposedly WANT to leave?
The school nurses all procastinate by dancing instead of doing their job, giving time to Lilith to appear and save them.
Lilith is THE empath, that's all we know about her, she's like a god or something, and lives on another dimension but i digress.
Cry Baby and Angelita BEG her to let them leave, but Lilith hammers back on that "trauma builds character!" Thing in the first album and says the must suffer in society before going to heaven or something; leaving them to rot.
She also kinda leaves this anti-change message, "you must suffer here until you die and become happy!" It's shitty.
I'm going to stop for now, see yall later!