Posted on December 15, 2006 by Jenna
“Shake your fists at bad news,” the television explains.
Jane grips a peculiar controller in one hand. She grips an attached controller in the other.
The television displays an ordinary street in an ordinary town.
Jane shakes her fists!
A red bar stretches across the bottom of the screen. It fades to orange, then to yellow, then peaks.
“Mild outrage,” declares the television. “HIGH PRICES!”
The prices in the store windows of the town go up. Pedestrians walk around in outrage.
“It really happens, you know,” Martin comments.
“Hm?”
“That’s what makes it ‘news’ and not a ‘simulation.'”
“Oh!”
Jane looks apologetically at the unhappy pedestrians.
“I mean, it’s okay,” Martin emphasizes. “News happens all the time. But it happens.”
“News is everywhere,” Jane agrees.
The television image shifts to a fire in California. “Cheer for good news!” it explains.
The fire is sweeping through the undergrowth.
Birds die. Chipmunks roast. In a house next to the woods a baby is crying.
Hesitantly, Jane puts her thumb up.
There’s silence.
“Cheer for good news,” the television reminds her.
Jane looks at her thumb. After a moment, she blushes.
“Right!” she says.
She pumps her right fist in the air, the left controller dangling. A green bar rises. It crests.
“This just in,” the television declares, a little reporter popping up in the upper right corner. “Fire extinguished!”
The fire vanishes.
A fireman rushes in.
“Bonus good news!” the television says, “Fireman saves baby!”
The fireman seizes up the baby and runs out of the house.
The television shifts to a riot in Ghana.
“Free play!” it says.
Jane pumps her fist in the air. She pumps harder and harder.
“Good news!” the television declares. The riot settles. Everyone realizes that violence solves nothing. Jane pumps her fist harder. Systemic injustice vanishes! People begin to riot from sheer happiness.
“Let me try,” Martin says.
“No way!”
“I bet I can shake my fists harder than you can,” Martin says.
Jane hesitates.
“Here,” he says. “It’s got a two-player mode.”
Martin’s already taking up his own controllers.
“Only if you’ll help me eradicate systemic injustice.”
“In Sweden,” Martin counters.
“The Americas.”
“Sweden and Chicago.”
“The Middle East.”
“Canada. And that’s my final offer.”
Jane thinks.
“Maybe if we waited for a neutral story?” she suggests.
“What, like adorable baby tigers found on the subway?”
“Mm,” Jane says, happily, imagining. Then she jolts out of her reverie. “Hey!”
Martin coughs.
“Evil ducks threatened by tidal wave,” the television notes.
“Evil ducks?”
“Tidal wave?”
Jane and Martin look at one another. Together, they say, “It’s win-win!”
* for technical reasons this legend is not actually about the Wii News Channel.
Categories: Legends, Hitherby, Jane and Martin at Play
ADamiani on January 26, 2007 at 4:39 am said:
Rebecca Borgstrom on January 26, 2007 at 4:45 am said:
rpuchalsky on January 26, 2007 at 6:30 am said:
Penultimate Minion on January 26, 2007 at 6:58 am said: