Augustine’s sister and cousins, and indeed the man himself, never quite approached the ranks of their parents, or the legendary heights of their grandparents. For the girls, it was not from a lack of trying. Petra and Calya began acting in childhood and for a period of ten years were consistently featured in perfectly serviceable roles. Emilie moved from the Western hills to Central to try to make a living as a public face too, even taking on a few auditions of his own.

But for this generation of Kirs, Augustine was undoubtedly the biggest household name.

Born in Central one year after the birth of Petra and one before Calya, the young Augustine was at the center of a lively, bustling family. Despite a sociable nature, he seemed content with a life outside the limelight. He participated in a few school productions and a year or two of violin lessons, but otherwise stuck to friends and studies (when it suited him). Bright and charming, Augustine had no shortage of relationships - moving from one to the next at a breakneck rate. He was perhaps not as driven as his sisters, but seemed to take pride in this relative moderation. The pursuit of stardom had bequeathed both girls with eating disorders, relationship woes and rampant anxiety in their teens and beyond. As he points out in an early video, spreading their menagerie of medication on the lustrous bathroom counter: all this, and for what?

At the end of high school, Augustine opened an account on the Neovision video streaming service and started his first channel, AK Everyday. There, he posted snippets of his life: thoughts on the latest movies, clothing and other purchases, tours of the Kir manor, highlights of the occasional party held by his parents and grandparents. The handsome teen’s occasional brush with celebrity thanks to his family pedigree attracted a healthy following, but nothing groundbreaking. Yet.

In 199x, Neovision entered the stock exchange and declared itself a family enterprise. To acknowledge this privilege, the owners put a blanket ban on any content that was deemed ‘unsafe for all age groups’. While the initial algorithm intended to only ‘deactivate’ human-reported unsafe content, it often wound up mercilessly wiping the uploaders’ entire accounts with no recompense. A set of outraged but tech-savvy users began their own spin-off service, coyly named Neovision Blue, which declared no such restrictions would ever be imposed.

Although his account was not affected by the Neovision bans, Augustine nevertheless made the shift to Blue, anointing his new channel AK Undercovers.

made an account here while drunk, his first status update says. no regrets place is so free i feel like i can do anything. top posts are f’n wild. The top post that day was a decapitation video leaked from a Northern conflict.

Neovision Blue, like many net services in their infancy, was desperate for funding. Luckily Augustine, with his healthy allowance, had plenty to give. His donor status gave him frequent billing on the front page. His reviews for expensive razors, wines and bicycles received fractionally more engagement than they had on retail Neovision. But what really catapulted AK Undercovers was indeed his activities between the sheets. He began to review women.

His first series is an inevitably juvenile selection. Each video begins with a mockumentary-style breakdown, after the ‘action’. He covers the woman’s appearance, estimated age, weight, bust size - and with special emphasis - coloration of hair, eyes and skin. He would sometimes give a short description of how they met before descending into fairly explicit, secretly filmed footage of various sex acts. Afterward, he’d rank the performance of the woman on a scale of A to F, stating his personal peaks and pits.

The series was a hit - views skyrocketed from hundreds to hundreds of thousands, and his follower count had tripled within two videos.

Kir himself was shameless for the camera and his charisma, looks and healthy celebrity connections seemed to ensure a steady stream of initially willing subjects. In a few of his uploads, the women even wave and pose for the camera. For better or worse, Kir always omitted the name of the women who ‘featured’ on his channel. The faces were also dutifully (though if not always effectively, as we will see) blurred by his assistant, a high school friend named Lis A. As a result, Kir managed to skirt punishments by lawsuits save for one occasion. An actress friend of his sisters’ managed to get her video taken down and draw a pittance from the Kirs’ pockets - but even so, blowback from Kir’s fans resulted in the woman retreating from the public sphere. Kir had by then amassed a rather large following. As Kir crassly warns, this is just an experiment. It’s science. It won’t be about you unless you make it about you.

In truth, the content of AK Undercovers was very mild in comparison to some of the depravity being uploaded to Neovision Blue. In 199x, after a scuffle with the National Safety division of the Central Army, Neovision Blue was forced to action some community guidelines. Explicit violence and sexual content were allowed, but had to be properly labelled, and would be diligently hidden from users who hadn’t dug up and checked the right boxes. There was fiery blowback from Blue’s userbase but not from Kir. His channel was not just set the weather the storm, but thrive in it.

Kir’s measly, almost ironic censorship of his own videos was apparently enough to keep his content from going dark alongside decapitations and child pornography. Detractors also say his family fame and Platinum sponsorship gave him extra leeway, to which Neovision Blue declined to comment. The funds he put into film production also gave his work a digestible, near-professional clarity in comparison to the remaining competitors. Absurdly enough, all of the above qualities seemed to give mainstream media platforms confidence in his ‘work’, and snippets of Kir’s content made its way onto entertainment news channels. Evening talkshow hosts hooted and hollered and called him a riot, and compared the asses of blur-faced women. Even I, in my indignant tween years, was admittedly entranced by the shamefully addicting spectacle.

Kir’s ‘reviews’ are still widely saved and circulated despite the official channel having been abandoned, and cut to shreds by Neovision Blue’s rule revisions. Mirrors of the entire archives can be found online on nearly any mildly-subversive video distributor. You may even find a video or two being cited in anthropological and legal documents - but those are largely a result of his next project.

Shortly after the 199x content scrub, Augustine had worked through women of all kinds and was growing bored. After waving another girl out the house - this one has green hair - he appears mildly distressed. Poised half-nude and pouting like an olden-day philosopher, he laments with deadly gravitas: women’s performance in bed can’t be determined by their hair and eyes and skin at all. It depends almost entirely on their experience. Their circumstances. Their upbringing.

After this startling (if only to him) revelation, he pauses. That’s bullshit, though. Nobody has time to read these girls’ biographies. Hell, some of them don’t even want to share.

And, he continues, when they do speak up about themselves, so many of them are fake. Fake, fake fake. I know what the excuse is - that it’s for the men, the men are making them be like that. What, who? Who’s going around saying ‘I want to be lied to’?

AK Undercovers takes a month-long hiatus. Some of the comments in his concluding video express disappointment, and a considerable handful are mocking. One smug viewer states: figured that shit it out when i was 12

But in an oddity for a Neovision comments section, the majority of responses are positive. ppl gonna say im trolling but I really never thought of it that way, writes an thoughtful viewer. thinkin… a girl who acts up isnt always doing it for fun…. who knows maybe those girls w the horns and spikes and fleshwings have just had it rough. wonder how theyd take to a taste of normal cock haha

They wouldn’t be wondering long.

—

In February of 200x, a 21-year old Augustine shows the world his Valentine sweetheart that year: a merwoman. She limps into the room with a confused smile, as he pulls her finned limbs up to the lens, shines a light through the thin, stretchy membrane over her ears, and pulls up her wide skirt to reveal two contorted, scaly legs. He then scoops her onto the bed and the usual shenanigans ensue.

Better than any of the others, Kir raves in his post-coital review. And I know what some of you are thinking - no, there’s no fishy smell… even less than a normal girl, really. This was how Kir kicked off his next series of reviews.

Although physiologically variant humans such as winged griffins, horned satyrs and finned or tailed merfolk always had some small presence around Central, the military expansion of the 199xs officially pulled several outer regions into the control of the Central superstate. Roads and railways spidered out to the far coasts and deep into the mountains, enabling easier access to the Core Cities from all corners of the continent.

Unlike incoming Life Fountains, griffins, satyrs and merfolk had been living alongside unvaried humans in the outer regions for centuries and were perfectly capable of communicating and working alongside un-finned, un-horned counterparts. But in the ‘glamorous’ city - already a roiling pot of prejudices between the existing spectrum of colors and sizes and origins - a rack of antlers or sidewalk-blocking wings were not going to slot in nicely. What once were fanciful beasts of old books became just more in a line of many others vying for food, work, housing and hospital attention. With the metropolitan police still in a state of disrepair after the 198x army reformation, violence ensued, most prominently against the oft mobility-challenged first-generation merfolk. At one point, cuttings from fins and tails were publicly advertised as ‘pescatarian treats’ and black-market moguls would target them for mutilation. Any takers are now legally distinguished as cannibals.

And for the variants that fought back, frequently the large-bodied, militia-raised griffins, there was a baroque, constantly altering legal system to contend with, and shame among their own small communities, which grew increasingly close-knit for protection.

And in a time where family values in unvaried humans were peaking, as a result of the army’s confiscation of historically-owned magic sources, introducing a ‘monster’ into the family was the last thing any reputable household wanted to do. But Augustine was beyond the advice of his parents now. He wanted monsters - and so did his viewers.

I’m giving them a chance, he says. At least they arent full of silicon and stupid ideas. Their schools just teach them the important stuff. They haven’t been reduced to samey fem-droids yet - haven’t lost the womanly drive, if you know what I mean...

The video features copious vigorous hand and body movements for emphasis.

It’s only natural they’d feel the need to breed. Increase the numbers. Not enough of them around, I guess.

A year after his ‘monster girl’ series began, the faerie citadel was moved from its old costal location to a new dock in the C-West mainland, making travel between citadel and Central easier than ever. The descendants of its ‘Founders’ arrived as magically preserved adults with the bodies of teens and pre-teens. The seemingly underage girl that Kir records himself canoodling with is an adult faerie woman twenty years his senior, a fact she proudly confirms after the video. Sticking her tongue out, she shows off an underdeveloped body, and the two large skin tags on her back, a mutation feature among fae that bear resemblance to insect’s wings.

As any modern reader will have picked up on, Kir's stance on variant equality might have been admirable for the time period, but his social sensitivity was lacking. In several instances, AK Undercovers featured amputees and other people with disabilities in the ‘monster girls’ series. Around this time he also experimented with a few male guests. Despite his claims to tell it like it is, without the crap, these misguided sessions always ended with negative ratings, but bizarrely polite reviews.

Despite his gushing for variant women, his words for them edged toward vulgar; more freely disrespectful. Hairy satyrs were gross, accused of leaving fleas. Wings and horns got in the way. Faeries bled on the sheets and made him ‘feel dirty’. In a way, his mockery was conventional. They had come to expect such talk. He knew he was safe. And with small variant communities, with many too far outside the technological sphere to be aware before it was too late, the blowback wouldn’t be on him.

The griffin woman Augustine describes after his street altercation was just one of the many poorly handled cases. While faces of his ‘stable’ were blurred, bodies were often left on full display, paused mid-shot so he could circle breasts and thighs with his cursor, pointing out stretch marks, spots, and ‘spillage’.

The griffin woman was a seven-foot-tall standard with dappled chestnut wings. AK Undercover’s blurred faces were already insultingly ineffectual, but with the body on show - including her wings - she was exposed to a greater degree than most. To make matters worse, in the year 200x, only 180 griffins lived in Mainline Central - anonymity was impossible. Exposed, she lashed out at Augustine, who retaliated with a lawsuit backed by the financial weight of the Kir family.

The residency of griffins in Central following the 1900s was controlled by barbaric restrictions that were supposedly in place to ‘safely accommodate their violent disposition and physiology’. The woman was fined half a million and ‘relocated’ to a commune in the canyons. 12 years later, the restrictions on griffins were discarded, taking into account their invaluable service in the military and the input of many rights groups, designating them the freedoms and rights of all citizens. But by then, fewer than 30 griffins remained in urban Central.

Horrific as much of his actions are in retrospect, Augustine Kir was lauded as a progressive by many fronts. Some of his watchers gained incidental appreciation (if not always true respect) for his female guests by seeing them in relatable - or rather, desirable - displays. And there were proponents who began to sense something was wrong, or were disgusted off the bat, and began to seriously campaign for public unification - thinking that not even ‘monsters’ deserved such treatment. Either way, indie videographer Kir had an indisputable effect on Central’s view of variant humans.

When the glacially paced but nevertheless adamantine fist of the Central army finally descended to serve judgment, in the enormous civil case of 200x that turned the tide and granted all previously defined variants and self-defined variants all benefits of personhood, Augustine Kir was cited no less than 18 times. Soon to follow was the reform of policy regarding fae sexual imagery which also invoked 3 of Kir’s ‘exhibitions’ - and said videos were removed from Neovision Blue in accordance with the verdict.

Aside from jealous snipes at his fame, Kir’s siblings and cousin appeared to turn a blind eye to his activities. The parents and grandparents never made statements on subject of the channel. Although Augustine still appeared to be receiving an allowance, from the day AK Undercovers opened, the elder Kirs were never seen with their prodigal son in public. This would not change until the tail end of his final series.

—

November 200x. Strolling into his familiar carpeted bedroom, Kir introduces his staff of two.

This is Lis, known her since middle school. She does so much for me around here, honest to god, if it wasn’t for her, you wouldn’t be watching this, you wouldn’t be watching any of this. Say hi, babe, then I’ll let you get back to work.

Lis is a young woman with a heart-shaped face, wrapped in an oversized puff sweater over a pair of striped underwear. Peeking out from oversize sleeves, chipped nails are tapping at a computer mouse. She blushes when he approaches and waves.

And here’s Vira. You might have noticed some real artsy shots in the last couple videos, well, that’s thanks to her. She’s a pro, or will be one day. Film school and shit, I’m almost jealous. Smile for the viewers, Vi.

A dark-haired woman, also in a state of half-undress, is tightening a white sheet over the bed. She tilts her head to growl at him. Great timing, it’s just like that, huh? Show everyone I’m here to play your maid. The cleaning lady around here, that’s me.

I’ll get you a frilly smock next time. Chill. Just wanted to give everyone a quick look behind the scenes, since today’s a special day. Alright, ladies. Why don’t we order a bite to eat before our guest arrives?

—

Vira L, now in her 50s, retains her severe but captivating expression, amplified by the sharp lines and silvery panes of her office. She is now a corporate representative for a Core Cities investment firm. She claims to have no regrets regarding Augustine Kir and her work for AK Undercovers. “It was all a show, all bluster. Augy was very dramatic. A mess of a guy. A decent boss, though.”

She lights a cigarette.

“Didn’t smoke when I worked for him. Things were relatively stress-free, you see. I was basically paid to stand behind the camera and walk around in negligee. You should have seen what some of the other girls in my class had to do to make tuition. Augy was a dumbass, but he was alright. Everything was a joke, can’t take all that shit he said too seriously. All jokes. In the beginning, even she…”

She takes a slow drag, letting that thought trail off in a fine mist of ash and smoke.

In a later interview, out in the suburbs, I meet Lis A. Happily married woman and mother of three, she still blushes every time I mention Augustine by name. “Yes, he did some things that horrify me when I look back on it all, but in some ways, he was ahead of his time. Other people did even worse things to those girls, you saw them try to cut off wings and throw red meat at the little ones - and - when they just wanted to be loved like anyone… that he even tried meant so much. He couldn’t keep them, of course.”

She kneads the edge of her skirt. “We were the special ones. He never tried anything on us.”

Vira snorts when asked about Lis. “That floozy kept throwing herself at him, but what he didn’t want, he didn’t take.”

“We weren’t like the other girls. Oh, it’s not nice to say that is it…?” Lis pauses.

She isn’t just talking about Vira and herself.

“That’s right, you’re here to talk about.. well, she definitely wasn’t like the others.”