icebear

Survivors

OK, I *promise* the next thing I write will be short and sweet.

So I wrote another frickin' novella. For those of you wondering, "why isn't Ice Bear posting anything when he's stuck in quarantine," the answer is because he decided he'd start four different projects simultaneously and then fixate on the longest one of them until completion. In case the title didn't make it clear, Survivors is the sequel to Losers, the novella I wrote back in February or so about Chanda and her friends be...

The Gamemaster's Screen now available on Amazon & Smashwords!

So hey, I wrote another book. :D It's up now on Amazon, and for those of you who've espoused a dislike of funneling money to Jeff Bezos, I've gone ahead and put it on Smashwords too. (Pretty sure he doesn't own that yet.) 

I know I've been talking it up forever, so here it finally is. I'll paste the description down below...

$20+ reward, The Gamemaster's Screen

At long last, here we have The Gamemaster's Screen, the first book in the Character Creation series. For those of you who were reading the chapters as it went along, there has been some significant revision, so there may be some fresh potential in there for a "re-read" as well. It's definitely better than it was, though I'll leave it to you to decide how you feel about it.

You may also notice I'm publishing this book under another name. Since this book is a small percentage less smut-or...

Educational Programming

Every now and then I go through old my old stories to refresh myself on what all I've produced, what I liked, what worked, etc. One commission from a couple years back that I rediscovered recently was Alice's Smartpartment. I walked away feeling like there was more to be done with the premise, and so... here we have, Educational Programming.

Not gonna lie, folks. It's pretty fucking weird. Our firs...

Rachel's Love Potion 2: Part 5

Here we go, folks! The fifth and final portion of Rachel's Love Potion 2: Rachel's Love Potion's Love Potion. 

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OK. So I *will* be continuing this, but it may be a bit. Since we've hit sort of a major twist, this seemed like a good place to bookmark things and be easier to come back to. Props if you saw it coming. :) I tried to plant a few seeds to show the changes weren't only physical a...

Work in progress: Gamemaster's Screen cover art

As you know, I usually don't splurge on customized cover art, to results ranging from "eh, that's not bad" to "wtf were you even thinking letting people see that". But I thought for this, what the hell, I'd splurge and hire a For Real artist to make something cool for me, and so far she is knocking it out of the park! Absolutely loving it.

To refresh everybody, The Gamemaster's Screen is about a group of folks who regularly play D&D-type games with one another in the not-too-distant...

"The Position"

Hey everybody! Here's a little story called The Position. It's set back in the 50's, and features a high school principal and his attempt to teach a very unruly young woman. It's exclusively for $5+ patrons, one of my thanks-for-giving-me-some-time-off-paid-commission thank you stories. So thank you! Between fiddling with The Gamemaster's Screen and then taking a week or so on Losers, I wanted to just write something that was straight smut, so if you've been missing it from your Ice Bear diet...

"Losers" up on Amazon

For a lot of you, this isn't much of an announcement, so if you already downloaded and read Losers, there's not much new to this other than the cover image. (Though I have added the version with cover art inserted in the $20+ pledge page with all my other Amazon stuff.) Go enjoy your day. :) For the rest of you! If you wanna just check it out ...

Losers

Holy freaking crap, folks. Like I said in my last post, I got an idea, and I was grateful to have the permission of the January commission winner to go crazy with it. When I thought "go crazy with it," I definitely did not think this would balloon like it did. Here, after weeks of tinkering (and a few days for the nice fellow who first inspired the idea to read it), is the result. It's a whopper of a production, at around 28,000 words (60 pages in pdf format), so  really closer to a nove...

Tolerance, and the Tolerant

Shame on me. Folks, I took Tolerance and The Tolerant down a long time ago from the EMCSA, and at the time, I told myself I'd fix all the many many problems I have with it, then put it up for sale. As you probably know, that never happened, because to absolutely nobody's surprise, spending a month editing something you already wrote is waaaay less interesting than generating brand new stuff. As such, Tolerance/The Tolerant sat on the shelf gathering dust and available to nobody.

I get e...

Rachel's Love Potion 2: Part 4

Whew! I hope everybody had delightful holidays. I for sure did. Of course, it's January 9th, so I'm kinda behind the curve of those sorts of well-wishes, but oh well. I had family over for a week and then friends in town for another, so all that put me behind some of my goals, but January put me back into it with a vengeance. I got caught up with three different pieces, one of which is posted here, along with the penultimate chapter of the next book, which I will be posting shortly, and the J...

Indentured Bimbotude

Howdy hey! It's December's commission drawing winner, this month with Indentured Bimbotude. It's a concept I'd thought about before, volunteering oneself as a sexual indentured servant in exchange for future pay-offs. (Frankly, if the tech for it existed, we'd almost certainly be doing it.) Anyway, here ya go! At this point, my hope is to have at least one more story for you fine people before the holidays, where I'll probably be in low/no progress mode for a couple weeks with family and frie...

Rachel's Love Potion, Part 3

Wanted more? Here's more! Keeping it short and sweet this time, like Rachel herself.

Commission: JBB Presents

Just go read it. Then the rambling below will make more sense. I recommend the pdf format, because the font shifts will show up more readily, which help with the flow.

***SPOILERS BELOW***

So, back in September, the drawing winner gave me a prompt with a whole lot of freedom. Basically, the idea was that somebody had a script that showed what everyone was going to say/do, like a movie script, and that they could edit it at their leisure. I loved the idea of it - reminded me of an ...

Rachel's Love Potion's Love Potion, Part 2

So here it is, the second part, in which we learn a bit about how Rachel's amateur warlockery affected her friend. It's probably not quite as much fun at the previous part, but is a necessary bridge from part 1 to part 3. Hopefully still some fun. There will definitely be a part 3 and perhaps a part 4 (5, possibly; 6 isn't totally out...), so if you're a completionist feel free to wait until there's more out.

On that note... it might be a while? I'm trying to let myself write whatever I...

Rachel's Love Potion 2, Part 1

UPDATE: The original Rachel's Love Potion story is available here. Sorry I didn't include that originally!

Man, it's rough when you realize you named a story wrong. Because here I am, writing the sequel, when I realize the sequel should definitely have the title of the original. So, since in the end it doesn't *really* matter, I doubled down and named this story Rachel's Love Potion 2: Rachel's Lov...

Commission: Scratch Where It Glitches

And here we have this month's commission drawing winner, who wanted a little story about a bionic implant run amok. I don't know if it was at all inspired by the weaker implants I've employed as a device for RWP, but either way, my head was already there. I'm going to be traveling near the end of the month, but I'll be aiming to get at least another chapter of RWP and Living the Dream before then, and perhaps finally get the September commission done once I iron out a few final details with t...

Living the Dream, Part 2

So here's the second part of Living the Dream. Now, I realized the other day as I was halfway through this installment that Alan Smithee was writing a *very* similar story over at the EMCSA. I got through most of the second piece of his story before realizing the similarity and was like... well, fuck a duck. So I stopped reading there, so I didn't have to know or wonder if we were taking our similar premises in similar directions. Not that it's a super original idea in the first place, not ev...

Living the Dream, Part 1 & ANNOUNCEMENT

Howdy everybody! I'll start with announcement stuff, then set up the new story. The $50 tier benefit has for some time been, in addition to all the stuff from other tiers, getting access to story chapters as I work on them. There used to be more to it, but since I've gotten away from for-hire commissions, I felt bad, because I couldn't really justify that hefty of a price for that. So I've dropped the $50 benefits to $30, so those folks can get what they were getting without me feeling like I...

Wasted TIOS opportunities (random amusement)

Man. Between Jordan, Conner and Amanda, I can't believe not a single one of those thought to use TIOS to grant a dog full student status with a gimmick like this.

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Miss C stohttp://justsomething.co/school-includes-teens-service-dog-in-its-yearbook-and-its-just-adorable/rmed to the back of the room to confront the disruption. "...

Introducing: The Roles We Play

Here it is, your first look at the next Big Thing coming your way from Ice Bear, Inc.! It's very tentatively entitled "The Roles We Play" (hereafter RWP unless I someday confirm this as the final title - kinda not loving it, but lemme know what y'all think). 

Minor spoilers below (If you're averse to reading the back cover of the book before you read the inside.)

It's about a group of adult role players in the good ol' Not Too Distant Future (no mutants, though, sorry X-Menke...

Commission: The 10-54 on Hemlock Street

OK, so here's something new, and it's really something kind of New. Finally someone has sought a commission that wasn't more alternaTIOS, and not only is it something original, but it's maybe a first foray into an adjacent genre. This story, per request, is less erotica and more romance, so bear that in mind as you head in. It's not sexless or anything, but it's noticeably distinct, I think. It begins with a police officer being asked to check a house for a dead body, but he finds something e...

Commission: Extra Credit (a TIOS story)

First off, another quick plug for all the interesting discussing happening on my community page. Some posts are up regarding topics like which of my leading ladies you found the loveliest (yech, I am so alliterative lately, I swear), what D&D characters the TIOS cast would be... all kinds of stuff. Feel free to chime in and/or post your own.

On that note, I've seen some folks in my niche of the web doi...

Coming Soon

I've been rewatching/finishing Orange Is The New Black the past few weeks with my mom as she recovers from back surgery, and it made me feel like I was lagging on my current projects. There's something about immersing myself in really amazing writing that makes what I do feel really inadequate. Perversely demoralizing? I don't know. (Also, how have I never done a story set in a women's prison? Come on, IB.)

Anyway, turns out I was beating myself up for no reason. In addition to a lot of...

Early release: "I Am So Bored"

Howdy everyone! A new story for you today that I'll be posting elsewhere later, but you wonderful people are first to the show. The title stems not at all from my own sentiments, but rather those of our protagonist, a mind controller overwhelmed with ennui who gives himself a challenge to spice things up. Remember, my early releases are first draft quality, so don't be surprised if there's some trouble spots. 

If you missed it [because Patreon makes such things easy to miss], be su...

Tolerance, and the Tolerant

So of all the stuff I've written, this series is by far the one I've gotten the most feedback on. (For the millionth time, sorry about Emily!) I took it off the web a long time back, planning on revising it to a point where I thought it would be as good as I wanted it to be. There are a lot of problems I have with it, from some inconsistencies in characterization, to the way the first half of the story is limited to one PoV but the second half jumps all over, to simply not sufficiently foresh...

Faculty Meeting

Howdy, folks! Another TIOS-inspired tale for y'all, continuing the work begun with Sub Notes and Lesson Plans. I won't say much to foreshadow, but hopefully it scratches that "man, but here's what somebody *should* do with TIOS" itch. :)

I think I'm going to work on a few short works here for a bit, catch up on some old ideas, but I'm beginning to get shape of my next Big Project, if I can come up with enough to make it sufficiently appealing. I'll tease it more when we get closer to it...

$20 downloads

To ease the convenience of accessing your rewards, I've gone ahead and attached a copy of every story available to $20 patrons in one post. Stories are included as of 4/20 as both pdf and epub. Going forward, I'll keep this page current as I add new material. 

Since it's a recurring question, here's my recommended reading order for the Friend Zone series: The Friend Zone, Friends With Benefits, Friend of the Family, Friend of a Friend, Friendly Neighbors, Work Wife, Patron of the A...

TIOS Recap

Howdy, everybody! Thanks so much for all of your feedback since this past weekend's publication of This Was Our Time, the TIOS version of End Game. (Lower cultural impact, sure, but consider the budget for each.) Anyways, I've gotten a couple suggestions that I should do a recap, for folks who don't want to re-read the first two books but have done some Life-ing in the interim. So I'm gonna do that below.

Also also, friend and fanatic WDB has been off the rails with commentary and insig...

This Was Our Time now live on Amazon!

And here it is, everybody! I hope you enjoy it, as well as the rest of your weekend!