Backstage for "Graduation Day" (Patreon)

And here's the patron-only post about the background of this story.

In the early 1990's, when I was in grad school, I started a novel called "Hands of the Bright" that was heavily inspired by the cyberpunk of the time. Also by anime; the main character (Teal in this, Aisley later on) was based on an androgynous anime assassin (I don't even remember the show's name) named Ainsley, and uses telekinesis to accomplish anime-style leaps and jumps.

I only ever wrote three chapters, didn't finish the third, and ran into some serious writer's block after my main character killed a sympathetic character and got the avatar of my ex-boyfriend trying to kill her (he wasn't my ex at the time). I'd like to go back to it, but the style seems so weird to me now; the conventions of 90's cyberpunk are gone, and worlds just aren't built that way anymore.

"Graduation Day" is the first chapter, only very slightly rewritten. I chose it because it stands on its own -- it was a self-contained prologue originally -- and the excesses of the time period weren't quite so evident throughout the prologue.