Four Corners Studios Newsletter Update 10/04/15

By Max Masen

News: Russian Scientist Claims Invincibility

Source

Literary device to consider: invincibility and its consequences.

We might as well start the newsletter with the news section.

The secret to living an ageless, eternal life is right around the corner it would appear. A Russian scientist claims to have just discovered bacteria that has enabled him to avoid aging and has allowed him to stave off a cold for a hefty two years. He claims it's been tested on animals, with the obligatory mouse included. Only time will tell if he and the plethora of animals tested upon will survive an inevitable apocalyptic scenario.

While this Tuck Everlasting story may not last forever as hoped by this scientist, it is neat to think that medical breakthroughs are around every corner that will lengthen our lives.

New Title Available On Kindle

Find Revolt on the Amazon Kindle store here, available exclusively as an eBook. This title is free for Kindle Unlimited subscribers. For others, you will find the title for $0.99. If you are interested in reviewing titles, contact us by leaving a comment on this page or emailing Max at msonnyl23@gmail.com for a free copy of the selected title.

Revolt follows the adventures of Dustin Parker, a boy at the onset of a full-scale revolution set in the United States. He is forced to care for his younger brother, a duty that will dig him deep into a lie that will take him years to climb out from. Following years of turmoil that the revolutionary forces protect him from, he emerges a man with a new set of beliefs. On his way through a cross-country trek, he meets and befriends many people with wavering allegiances, some to the revolutionary Hyenas and others to what remains of the government forces. With betrayal and survival on everyone's minds, Dustin takes it all head-on in a last attempt to get to safety.

Other Titles To Read

In addition to Revolt, Max has released three other titles: the first in the Adventures of Little Peter series, a new addition to the post-apocalyptic series Nautical Nomads, and Motivation Compilation. For information to receive these titles for free in exchange for review services, contact us by comment or email us at msonnyl23@gmail.com.

Short Story

Adventures of Little Peter: March On Part 1

By: Max Masen

Little Peter followed the sounds of trumpets and trombones. The marching band was practicing for their performance during the football game on Saturday. Little Peter knew something else was happening, something far more sinister. The coach of the marching band had left his mistress' house in a hurry. Little Peter had been in a hurry to reveal him for what he was: a cheater. In every marching performance, he had requested that his band go first. Little did every other band know that he had secretly recorded their sessions and taught his band the other groups' routines. He was a cheater in the worst way.

Little Peter cornered the coach when the rest of the band had marched to where they could not see the coach. It was then that the coach tore off his shirt and hat to reveal his evil costume: a leather tunic with a Native American headpiece. The coach pushed Little Peter up against the wall and superglued him to it. He laughed maniacally and marched to meet up with his band, ready to give a performance he had not convoluted himself, a performance stolen from another coach.

Little Peter wiggled hopelessly on the wall. He could not even budge.

Is this the end for Little Peter?

To be continued...

Final Note

Four Corners Studios is a group of writers dedicated to bringing readers quality content in the form of stories filled with heart, humor, and recognizable, recurring characters. In addition to this, we occasionally comment on social situations, review movies, books, and other forms of media. If you have a story you would like reviewed or edited, feel free to contact us.

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Find us on Twitter @fourcornerstuds and check out our friends at writerspouch.wordpress.com for more amazing short stories.

5 Animals With Awesome Superpowers

By Sonny Long

You've seen all of the new movies that came out. Surely at least one or all of them featured either a superhero, talking raccoon, talking tree, or all of those. After seeing countless movies about athropomorphic animals that can sing, dance, and kick the crap out of anything in their paths, it can be easy to take for granted the fact that our animals can't actually do any of that, and our cats are lazy pieces of shit.

Seriously Mr, Whiskers, do something with your life.

So we're gonna tell you all about the animals with insane powers you've never heard about that shame even the coolest of superheroes (sorry, Daredevil, blindness isn't a power). So let's get started with...

5. Water Bears Are Immortal

Despite sounding like it, water bears are not a concoction from a top secret lab of the world's shittiest supervillain. Water bears are actually about a millimeter long and nearly impossible to destroy. Although they don't live up to the physical representation of water and bear, they are the hardest creatures on Earth to kill.

As if this wasn’t bad enough.

Water bears are known to be able to survive in extreme conditions, from scorching heat to much below the acceptable freezing temperatures (think -328 degrees F). Beyond this, they are known to be able to survive in outer space as well as go without food for over a century.

4. Planarians Are Pretty Much Immortal Too And Can Duplicate

If there was one superpower you could pick, a lot of people would say immortality. If one immortal animal wasn't enough, we'd like to introduce you to the cute and cuddly worm, planarian. Upon seeing it and being surprised by how adorable it is, you may instinctively cut it into a few different pieces. Well, if you were to do that, the joke's on you: cutting a planarian into different pieces actually will cause the different pieces to regenerate the missing parts. Kind of like another superhero we know.

At least it’s not as big of a smartass.

Every piece cut off of a planarian grows into a different planarian, much like the hydra in Hercules. So not only is the planarian immortal, it's able to clone itself into more immortal planarians. We only hope they have a long gestation period, or else the Earth may be covered in them in no time.

3. Plumed Basilisks Can Run On Water

Walking on water isn't generally the first superpower we hear people say they would want. Nonetheless, it's shown up in popular culture, with The Flash being able to run on water, as well as in ancient text (Jesus walked on water). What your Catholic school teachers never taught you was that Jesus wasn't the only one walking on water back them. Meet the Plumed Basilisk, a lizard capable of running on water on its hind legs.

Psshh. That’s soooo 2,000 years ago.

Aside from that, you may want to know more about this little guy. He's capable of running on land at an amazing 7 miles per hour, as well as being able to remain submerged underwater for up to 30 minutes. We don't really know our lizards, but we're gonna go out on a limb and say that's not par for the course for lizard abilities.

2. Rhodesian Ridgebacks Hunted Lions

What's a Rhodesian Ridgeback? you're probably thinking. It's a breed of dog, but don't worry, we'll have the video down below. For now, let's just talk about how difficult it was for the poor European travelers coming into the wilds of Africa, what with the rough landscape and new people they just couldn't get used.

Should have stayed in England.

The dogs the Europeans brought along were used to hunting small game like foxes and rabbits, not the likes of lions and, well, anything that hunted back, really. Therefore, they used their pups and cross-bred them with the various wild-dogs of the local Hottentos. That's how we got the Rhodesian Ridgeback a.k.a. African lion hound.

There is no video.

1. Dragons Breathed Fire and Ate Hobbits

Dragons, living thousands of years ago, roamed the landscape and owned the world. They forced humans into hiding and ate whatever they pleased. They were large, scaly beasts that could breathe fire and could destroy an entire village in a single swooping motion.

Contrary to popular belief, not all of them were named Smaug. Meet Greg.

Dragons actually did face off against hobbits on the likes of the islands New Zealand and Australia. Constant clashes led to the foundation of the Fellowship of the Ring, and eventually the Return of the King. Other stuff happened, such as various battles with Andy Serkis, Saurumon, and orcs. Dragons went extinct, but not before this epic battle caught on film a milennia ago featured below. Enjoy.

Follow Sonny on Twitter @fourcornerstuds or check out his book about the struggles in the apocalypse here.

Thanks for reading and check out our other articles by amazing authors on our page. If you like what you see, we’d appreciate it if you would follow us by e-mail. Leave us comments to tell us how our writing is and what you think about stuff. We always respond.

5 Sci-Fi Weapons We're Scarily Close To

By Sonny Long

Alright, aspiring science fiction writers, as well as aspiring mad scientists (or real mad scientists), you seem like you're ready to hear all about what's new in the science world of military technology. Well, you probably already know about all of this stuff. Probably more than we do. So this here is more for the average folks and some peasants.

We're gonna be talking all about science advances the eight year-old you wanted, and the 20-something-year-old you still wants (probably more than young you). Oh, but you should probably be pretty scared for some of these coming to life because they'll be far out of your control.

So let's get started on what science has been cooking up to save us all... Or destroy us all...

5. Exoskeletons

When playing through your Call of Honor games, or games that otherwise feature an invincible warrior that can soak up ten, maybe a thousand rounds before succumbing to the need of a healing, and then go another thousand rounds, you probably wondered about how this could be possible. No? You just went ahead and kept playing because that's more fun than thinking too hard about it? Fair enough.

Well, it may come as some surprise that what you see in the games is not even close to possible. You can't really respawn back to life and give it another go at Hitler after you've fallen in battle. Also, you can't really soak up that much lead and keep going at MechaHitler. In reality, sometimes even one bullet can end a person's life. Yes, even yours. Sorry to ruin that for you.

But, you know what's pretty neat? The military has been working on suits that will allow troops to carry 400 pounds but feel a weight that's closer to 20 pounds. They're exoskeletons that will add to a soldier's natural strength. The military is hoping the suits will take off a lot of strain from lifting heavy amounts of... military stuff. Ammo?

They're also claiming that the suits will allow soldiers to run across a battlefield at lightning speed. If that's the case, they may never have to worry about having to go another thousand rounds if they can just dodge the bullet. Hopefully, since the suit is an exoskeleton, it will give the soldier's the power of the average insect, allowing a giant to squish them enough to hear a crunching noise, but not kill them.

Aside from being worried that Iron Man is becoming a reality, you should be wondering when you can get your hands on one. After all, if we all become Iron Men, are we still considered Iron Men, or are we still just men because that's the new standard?

4. Lasers

Something else the eight year-old you may have (definitely) wanted even more than to be a superhero might have been to have some laser beams ripping into the side of... well, probably everything. After all, what does an eight year-old not think of destroying? Whether the lasers you dreamt of came out of a sword or from various firearms from the Star Wars Universe (you've probably never heard of those movies, they're not very popular), you knew you wanted to blow stuff up and lasers may have been the coolest way to do it. Why? We don't have time for ridiculous questions.

Look, we're not getting this excited about laser hair removers or laser pointers. We're talking about the real deal here. We're talking about lasers that can take down a full-sized Star Destroyer. Alright, maybe we're just talking about lasers that can rip into the side of an aircraft carrier and do some major damage.

The lasers we (the government) have been testing have proven to be able to take down 150 drones and other incoming targets, such as rockets, missiles, and stormtroopers in test rounds. Alright, that last one may or may not be true. It's not.

Moving on, the government is also claiming these lasers will save a ton of money for us taxpayers, costing around a few million to fire just a single missile, where the lasers cost more in the ballpark of a dollar for each round spent. Why they feel they need to make claims to convince us why they need to use lasers is beyond us. We're probably more for it than they are at this point.

3. Guns That Shoot Around Corners

You're running through the streets, somebody chasing behind you, closing in. What's this? They have a gun! You notice this briefly but you keep running. Why are they chasing you? Why are you stopping to think about it?! Run! You successfully made it around the building, the person chasing you now nowhere to be seen. What's happening? Why is the barrel of the gun coming around the corner but not the man, woman, or possible space alien chasing you? Run!

Well, the bad news is you're dead. The good news is that at least it was a pretty cool new weapon in development that did you in. You also have nothing to feel bad about because there was no way you could have escaped it and the above example was just a simulation. It wasn't real so you can relax now.

The Corner Shot is a gun that, well, you probably can guess by now, shoots around corners. It has a camera on the side that allows you to see what the barrel of the gun is seeing, and also so you know what you're shooting at. Models start at a small price of $5,000 and come in both assault rifle versions, as well as "personal" grenade launcher versions, for all of your needs of destroying your jerk neighbor Chad's house. Because Chad is a jerk.

2. Stealth Cloaks

One thing that Harry Potter taught us is that the best superpower is time travel. And the second best is invisibility. Seriously, Harry is able to sneak all around Hogwarts doing whatever the heck it is he does (wizard stuff?). It enables him to sneak around undetected and figure out what all of those evil, kind-of one-eyed teachers are up to. And Snape. Snape is a douche, right?

Imagine if the military started investigating into that kind of magic and witchcraft. It would be crazy to think that our soldiers could soon be running around without so much as setting off a guard's detection meter above their head. It would be unbelievable.

Well, believe it, because your Uncle Sam is looking into making our soldiers invisible as we speak. They'll be able to sneak into enemy bases undetected and have the edge they need to get in and out before anyone knows they were there. Hopefully for the soldiers, they are also working on a way to make them visible again after the mission.

The invisibility clothes (we're holding back the urge to call it a cloak) work by bending the light around the soldier. It would greatly reduce visual and thermal signatures of the soldiers, making them much harder for the bad Russians to detect them. You can thank Harry Potter for making our soldiers safer.

1. Terminators

The scariest way to go, arguably of course, would be being squashed by a murder-bot while the rest of your species was also being wiped out by said murder-bots. What, do you have different, more realistic fears? Terminator showed us a future in which robots were on the verge of victory over mankind. Robots, the creations of humans in this universe, gained autonomy and decided humans would lead to the destruction of the Earth. Which, you may have noticed, was the exact same plot as Age of Ultron. So, to rectify this, the robots destroyed the Earth. Showed us humans, I guess. However, back in the real world, you obviously have nothing to fear, seeing as...

Oh, wait. They're working on Terminators as we speak? At least they're calling them a name that sounds more cuddly than murdery, even if not by much. UGVs (unmanned ground vehicles) will see service soon in many militaries around the world. Their service will help put our soldiers out of harm's way, seeing as they'll be taking the bullets for them. We can only hope they never gain autonomy enough that they realize we created them for the sole purpose of being bullet sponges.

There's still a lot of tweaking that needs doing before these Termina- er, murderbots see action, however, seeing as there's a lot of concern that the machines won't be able to tell who is hostile and who's coming at them with a puppy. There's obviously a lot of problems that this could cause, with one faction not being able to determine if another meant to shoot at their prized hog or if the UGV had a literal mind of its own. And God forbid these machines determine that we're all a problem, and there's only one way to rectify that problem...

Save us, Sarah Conner.

Thanks for reading and follow Sonny on Twitter @fourcornerstuds. If you like his writing style, check out his book here. Remember to subscribe by e-mail at the top of the page for more!

5 Unattractive Traits (That Science Says Are Sexy)

By Sonny Long

We’d all like to believe we know what the other sex wants (sex, hopefully). But most of us only have a faint idea of what those traits the other gender is actually going for are. And, unfortunately for most of us, the countless commercials, shows, and self-help books have lied to us in a cruel ploy to get us to read or watch more on the topic. So, let’s take a look at some of those lies and see what really turns us on...

5. Being Scrawny (Men)

In most of our experiences, women tend to go for the strong men: the ones with elevated testosterone, a trimmed and tuck beard, massive upper body strength, and pardon our French, but the complete douchebags. We know this is mostly evolution taking its course; women want a man who can take care of them, their children, and will survive attacks from rogue mountain lions.

And that’s fine. The rest of the men on the other side of the campfire are totally cool with playing with arts and making songs while the other men are making goals at their sport-games. Just because the beard-fairies haven’t visited these men yet doesn’t mean they won’t someday sprout into the strongmen they know they’re meant to be. At least, that’s what they tell themselves.

But that’s where science comes in. Women tend to find the real strongmen, with elevated testosterone and all, more attractive because it means they’re healthier and more likely to produce stronger offspring that will have a better chance of surviving. That much is obvious. Many studies have also shown that manly facial features make men appear healthy and strong.

Good, manly looks come at the price of not having the inherent qualities that women seek in a long-term mate, however. Our brains automatically link manly men with poor father skills and are often seen as emotionally cold, something women don’t generally put on their “wants” section in their dating profile.

Wimps, on the other hand, are the opposite in every way. Women in more wealthy countries tend to go for the men that would take care of their children, play with them, and be all around a great person to hang out with. Women in poorer countries, rife with disease, often portray their health more negatively. Because of this, they tend to be attracted more to men with manly faces, as well as bodies and voices.

All of this information should come as no surprise, as women living in poorer regions often have only the survival of their children in their interests. On the other hand, women living in first world nations don’t have to worry as much about infant mortality rates given the advances in technology and medicine keep our babies alive much better than in the past. Less masculine men are ideal in this situation, seeing as they are seen as safe for women to be with, especially since they are less likely to cheat.

4. Generosity (Men)

Coming off of the last topic, you would think that men being “nice” or generous would have negative connotations. Think: “sissy boy.” Males of most every species are meant to be strong, independent, and fierce, never thinking of another person’s feelings for fear that they would get in the way of their own bulging testosterones. Any form of donation to the weak would be considered charity to someone who could have killed a buffalo on their own. Think: early Republican.

In a study, men were more likely to give money to strangers. Also, they were more likely to give to charity. However, they were much more likely to give to all of these things if it was in public, in full view of all of the pretty women, as well as their jerk neighbor, Chad. Seriously, Chad’s a jerk.

In contrast, women were much more likely to give in private, mostly giving to close family and friends. We can’t help but think some form of male ego may be at play here… Nah.

Women tend to find men who donate more to charity and help others out more attractive than the men who didn’t kill their own buffalos.

3. Being Unfunny (In Women)

Funny is attractive to both men and women. Having a good sense of humor is actually a good way to see how smart a person really is. In fact, you can give it a good guess as to how many women a man has slept with just by how funny he is. It’s something that women generally do put on their “wants” list when looking for a man to court them.

For women, the same does not hold true, however. Men are attracted to women who find them funny; they aren’t attracted to women who are funny. This probably goes back to men feeling the need to be dominant and are insecure around a woman who can make them laugh.

This is also the same reason we find comedians more believable than our politicians; we would rather hear facts presented with humor. We are more likely to believe them that way. This probably also explains why you want to bang Obama. And it also probably explains why I want to bang Obama.

2. Mild Neuroticism (In Women)

Think for a moment, men. What trait do you find most attractive in a woman, besides apparently being uncreative in the making jokes aspect of life? Come on, it’s on the tip of your tongue. It’s mental disorders, that’s what the phrase was you were looking for. You want a woman that is highly anxious. Why? Because it means she’s gonna make a great mother for your future babies. Women who are more anxious generally care more for the wellbeing of their children, as well as everybody else.

Alright, I can hear you now: Why would you want a woman who has severe anxiety? Well, your DNA tells you that you want a baby, despite your bros saying otherwise. You need that baby to carry on your family’s line and save Westeros. After all, your family is the rightful heir to the throne. And this is now Game of Thrones.

Men have the need to procreate just as much as women do, in some cases even more. When it comes time to settle down, you want a woman who can care for your child, not toss it over the edge of a cliff like in 300. When that time comes, go for that weird girl in the back of the bus. Give it a try. She might just be anxious enough to give you the offspring worthy of saving the kingdom from evil Joffrey (I’m super behind on my Game of Thrones viewings).

1. Humility (In Everyone)

What do you picture your ideal partner to look like? Loud, obnoxious, narcissistic? What about humble, quiet, and approachable? That’s probably not what most people think of when picturing the person they would most likely end up with. Some people want their opposites; this means that some people do want that obnoxious guy screaming from across the bar. Some others want the nice, quiet guy sitting alone with the scarf across his neck. Why? He’s humble, and research shows that we love the shit out of some humble people.

This could come from the fact that we ourselves like to show off, and sometimes our partners can get in the way of that. Sometimes we’d rather our significant other to just back off a little and let us shine. Or it could be because humble people see their strengths and weaknesses more accurately than other people do. This makes them much more likely to fix something that’s actually wrong with them. Put together, this makes for a great person to be around, unlike your neighbor, Chad. Seriously, he’s such a jerk.

Thanks for reading and follow Sonny on Twitter @fourcornerstuds. If you like his writing style, check out his book here. Remember to subscribe by e-mail at the top of the page for more!