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umathurman2 · 5 years

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MAFIA DOGS - 1

Synopsis: Ishii Ishikawa is an infamous yakuza boss of the 1940′s, whose goal is to succeed where her mother failed - in business, in life, in love. She is willing to go through anyone to come out the better, even if that person is her soulmate, American mobster, Bucky Barnes. MAFIA AU, SOULMATE AU, BUCKY X OC

First time posting a fic on Tumblr. Bear with me while my formatting and links stay messy for a couple of weeks lol. All fics posted on FF.net under colouredred. Will link later.

Please read and enjoy.

mafia dogs masterlist

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MAFIA DOGS. ONE.

The woman buying out Sergeant’s extensive hotel empire was a bitch in a Dior dress and Mary Jane shoes. She owned any room she walked into, and it wasn’t all because of her diamond-tier inheritance. Black hair hung straight and sleek to her waist. Her hands lay across the arms of her velvet chair, where she sat tall and elegantly draped. Her ankles were slender and exposed, and her neck arched back as she shot champagne like sake. The other hand, by her side, kept a firm grip on the black sheath of a Kinamon-original sword. She who had power of death, commanded the living more than money and beauty ever did.

Her reputation did not precede her. In her homeland of Japan, the casino would have nearly emptied itself at her presence. The hotel managers would have been rushed downstairs from their office, throwing themselves into deep bows, until she grew annoyed enough to tell them to stop. Her entourage would have been seven body guards, a chauffeur, and a personal assistant.

In America, the gamblers gambled on. Music played not to the tune of whatever she preferred, but to the jazz beats of the 1940s. She was afforded only one attendant, who was of course handpicked and her most trusted confident. In some ways, Kishi Kiyamoto was more fearsome than even her boss was. She dressed in a completely forward-fashion suit, with high-rise pants and a fitted jacket long enough to hide the weapons she used in her position as bodyguard. Being muscular and scowling and scarred down her right cheek, she was masculine in the ways of social rejects.

The two of them attracted their share of side-eyes and odd looks. It bothered Kishi more, who ground her teeth and found her fingers twitching. She only stilled when a glass of champagne was pressed into her hand, and downed in one, swift go.

“Arigatō, bosu.” Kishi shifted on the spot, and then placed the glass back on the polished dining table before them. Her worn spot against the wall was taken up again, where Kishi could watch the casino-goers all around. “Anata wa kinchō shite imasu ka?” she asked.

“It is polite to speak the foreign tongue in their country,” the other woman replied, “…And I am not nervous. I have already decided to tear out the bar, open up the floor so performers can play, though they cannot have music like we do.”

“Ippantekina inu.”

She smiled, and touched a hand to her cheek. “Call him a dog to his face.”

“I will, boss,” Kishi said, and nodded across the crowd, “Sergeant is here, now.”

The two women looked from their seat through the casino. Glittering, glass chandeliers hung from the vaulted ceiling. Games of poker and luck were dotted across the tiles, and attended to by patrons in glittering dresses and expensive suits, with gold jewellery to complement their reckless tastes. Though the people were thick, they parted ways for a group of men in black suits. Through the jazz and the air thick with smoke, they moved with an ominous air. Dark, brooding, all tall and threatening, though she was the one with the sword at her side.

She stood to great them, and was rigid as their boss stepped forward from the pack. He was tall and well-built, with a handsome face and grey eyes. She met him nearly level in height, and did not look down nor bow. His lips teased a smile, and without invitation, he took her free hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles – “A pleasure to be meeting you, Miss Ishikawa.”

“Yakuza inu,” Kishi spat, offending the suits without them knowing what she had said.

“-A traditional greeting in Japan,” Ishii Ishikawa excused her bodyguard, “Among our kind, at least – please, sit.”

“In my own hotel?” replied the man, “Don’t mind if I do.”

They took their seats and he took his glass of whiskey. Kishi squared off with his four bodyguards, whom she was more than capable of taking on if she wanted to. Ishii’s approach was subtler, and involved a sip of champagne, a firm grip on the sheath of her sword still. She leaned back in the chair, and waited for New York’s top dog to take a bite of her. In their world, on this soil, Sergeant James Barnes was the force to be reckoned with.

“You don’t dispute that it’s my hotel,” he said next.

Ishii let the alcohol settle. “I do not need to dispute it.”

“Ya mean to stake your claim regardless of our back-and-forth?” He laughed, “Endearing, doll. Should we start on a bottle of red?”

Kishi stepped forward to stop one of his men from pouring another glass. “Boss does not drink that crap.”

James Barnes leaned back in his seat, waving the wine away. “Sorry to hear it. Can I get ya anything else to make ya more comfortable?”

“No, thank you. I feel right at home already,” Ishii declared, with an impersonal smile, “And I would like to get down to business quickly. Tell me your price for the hotel.”

“Tell me what you’re offering.”

“…Given the work I would have to do, I can offer you ten million.”

“Ten million?” Barnes arched his brows, leaned forward, and then leaned back with the same incredulity, “What work are ya talking about?”

“Without offending you, I am of course meaning the outdated lighting, the repainting of the walls, taking down the ceiling roses, though the most important change is moving the bar so you can have dancing, the right way,” Ishii replied, “A stage for some kabuki, or some Hattori-style bands.”

“We have dancing in America, Miss Ishikawa. That’s more offensive than any of the other defects you’ve listed about this hotel, which,” Barnes added firmly, “Is worth five times your offer.”

“Theft,” Kishi could not hold her tongue any longer, “If you have done research to know what boss can offer up, you would know your income from this building has been dropping, and so has the property in the area been valued less. You do not have heritage in this building, no history, no tradition, only fake gold chandeliers.”

Barnes fixed her with a chilling gaze, which she didn’t turn away from. Those men behind him seemed to lean forward, waiting for a command. He had a reputation for killing people for less, among all the other rumours of illegality chasing him. Ishii Ishikawa, with her sword, could not have stopped them from pulling a gun. He turned to study her, relaxed as ever in her chair, but with such a wicked glint in her eyes that he wondered if he was mistaken. Her father, the famous swordsmith Kinamon, was supposed to have stopped a bullet with his naked blade. Perhaps she had inherited that superhumanity. The effect of her freckled cheeks was inhuman, undoubtedly.

After a moment of consideration, he leant forward and made for the hand Ishii had placed on the table. Her other hand moved quicker, bringing the sheath of her sword to his chin swiftly. Sleek black forced him to look along the length of it, the gold embossing, the white hilt, the ribbon wrapped around it. It would have been remarkable to see it unsheathed, though not as it was now, tip to his neck. Ishii forced his head up, even though her eyes remained lower.

Barnes’ shirt hung open, loosely unbuttoned and low around his chest. On the inside of his right shoulder, a long slash of a birthmark ran the width of a rib. A soulmate marking. Pity the person who ended up with he, mob boss of New York, as their one-and-only.

“-A lover’s mark, don’t you think?” James Barnes remarked, an edge of flirtation in his voice. There was a sly look in his eyes that brought Ishii back to herself.

Of all possibilities for her soulmate to be, a lover was not one of them. “My own belongs to my rival.”

Barnes leant back in his seat again, and tugged up the collar of his shirt over a gold necklace. The bodyguards behind him relaxed again, and their hands left their suit pockets empty. Though a strange look passed between Ishii and himself, she was unshakeable. “…I was gonna ask ya dancing,” the mob boss explained, nearly laughing, “Ya seemed keen enough on the idea, though I suppose it’s informal by your standards. How about a tour instead, and I’ll show ya just why you can consider this a hundred-million-dollar investment, if ya can swing that?”

Ishii’s empire was more than just the hotels in her name, but two hospitals and a restaurant chain in her homeland. If Barnes hadn’t discovered those in his research, she was willing to let him play with the idea that a hundred-million was too much for her. She would love to see him offer a contract, and to snatch up his business out from under him. She had come to the States expecting underhanded tricks from American mobsters, and had prepared her own accordingly.

She agreed to the tour, and the two of them stood. Barnes offered his arm to her, which she refused. She preferred both hands free and on her sword. If he took offense, it didn’t show on his face, though scathing looks from the one blond, bodyguard that accompanied him let her know anyhow. Kishi gave him in equally fierce look, which cowed the man visibly. Even Barnes was amused by the dynamic, and made a teasing comment about it to them all. Ishii ignored it and redirected the conversation to the hotel amenities.

Barnes led her from the dining towards the bar, first, so he might order another drink. The bartender just about wet his pants upon serving him, to which Barnes told Ishii, “Happens every time.” He then led her to the poker tables, where he explained a little of the rules and leaned close to her to do so. She let the sword trade hands so it remained a barrier between their bodies, though it wasn’t able to ward off the heat. Kishi did her best to keep the cool, with a lot of icy stares thrown around.

Whenever he explained some detail of the casino to her, Ishii made sure to counter with a negative. They argued over aesthetics, on which he had surprisingly strong opinions, and all of which involved gaudy ideas. Ishii believed firmly in not taking shortcuts, and pointed out several of them around the hotel. No doubt, there were shadier going-ons backstage, a siphoning of money headed towards his pockets. Each remark of hers somehow became a flirtation on his tongue, a string of pet names and a way of standing around her that betrayed his personal intentions.

Ishii watched the way his neck moved as he shot back whiskey. When he lit a cigarette, his lips curved around it and shaped circles of smoke when he exhaled. When the tour came to the staff offices, he threw his suit jacket over his chair and rolled the sleeves of a crisp button up to the elbows. Barnes truly was the devil in New York.

Ishii remained constant over the course of the evening. Her Dior dress kept its shape, and her legs remained long in her evening heels. The ankle straps drew attention to the slenderness of her shape, her fair skin under stockings, perfect for kissing. Though Barnes’ casinos were known for ending rough with their customers, not one hair on her head was ever out of place. She walked untouched through American glamour, and only brushed her freckled cheeks twice with her hand. Kishi knew the gesture was meant to hide amusement, and hoped Barnes was too distracted by her constant beauty, constant rebuttal, constant affability, to notice. If Ishii stared to much at his chest and that preoccupied him too, it was good enough for Kishi.

“Well, if my business is as bad as ya say, what’s driving ya to come all the way out to America to buy it off me?” Barnes put the question to her, settling in behind his desk.

“…I like a challenge.”

“That’s it?”

Ishii nodded, and moved to the window to peer down the alley outside. She wondered about the murders that had happened in those gutters. “This business is my mother’s legacy, and she worked hard for it,” Ishii explained, “I am going to surpass her.”

“Ah, family are like our greatest enemies, as much as we love each other.” Barnes tapped the ash away from his cigarette, and continued lightly, “Just like soulmates, right? Two people absolutely made for one another, unless ya don’t happen to find each other – and then, they’re killing ya, sucking the feelings right from ya. I wouldn’t know whether to bow down to that kinda power over me, or kill ‘em for it. Though I’ll tell ya, when I do meet my soulmate, before there’s any kind of killing going on, first thing’s first – I’d fuck them with all the love I’ve been saving up.”

Ishii looked him in the eye as he made that declaration, and the words crawled up her cunt and into her bones. There was a sinful glint in his eyes, a knowing look. He was a man used to being on top, and who acted as though he had it all figured out. Those dark curls falling in front of his eyes were too innocent to be real.

“-So,” he added, right back to sweet-talking, “Maybe I can change your evaluation of my hotel if ya see the rooms themselves. Should we start with the penthouse?”

He had stood and offered his hand to her again. Though Ishii again hesitated to take it, he was insistent this time, and more patient than she realised.

“Boss,” Kishi began in warning.

Ishii accepted his hand knowing there would be other conditions with it. His pleased grin told her so. “I’m honoured,” he led her towards the door, where he turned back to Kishi and one of his own bodyguards, “Miss Ishikawa and I still have quite a bit of business to discuss. Set Miss Kiyamoto up with a room on the thirty-sixth floor so she might relax for a few hours.”

Ishii made a show of her sword so Kishi would not object any more in public. ‘Bodyguard’ did tend to creep into friendship where the two of them were concerned, and their familiarity had to be leashed when it came to business matters. There were no more arguments on either side to stop them, so Barnes was quick to lead her to the embellished doors on an elevator, where he assured her the contraption had been tested with the newly-invented automatic-braking system. Ishii didn’t care either way.

He showed her inside the room, which had mirrored walls around, above and below. The floor numbers were on gold buttons just inside of the doors. Barnes closed those metal doors before pressing the penthouse level. They stood a foot apart, looking ahead steadfastly. There was no music to fill the silence there, only the beating of her heart.

“-Show me your mark.”

Ishii was expecting the demand without pre-empt. She turned to face him with cool eyes, her tongue coming out to touch her lip.

Barnes took one step closer, his face twisting. “Show me your soulmate mark. Ya have too. You’ve been staring at mine since ya saw it, and I know ya recognised it. Show me – end my agony.”

Ishii’s fingers lay at the top of her dress. Black velvet was soft against her fingers, and rolled easily down her neck. Freckles ran across her collar bones, were spattered over her shoulder. The swell of her breasts teased him as she folded her dress lower, and lower, where a sliver of a birthmark sat just above her heart. Barnes took in her soulmate mark, as familiar to him as his own, because it was his own. His exact match stood before him in Ishii Ishikawa, his most enchanting business rival yet.

The elevator had reached the fifteenth floor now. Barnes covered the distance before they made it another level, and his hand curled around the back of her neck, crushing her up into a kiss. He did not hold back. He poured his every possessive instinct, his passion, his hatred, his adoration, into that kiss. Those feelings which had once faded from his memory returned in full force, completing him, as his soulmate kissed him back with fervour and force of equal measure. She wanted those emotions back too.

The elevator shuddered as it stopped at the penthouse floor. When those doors opened, the two of them were standing forward as they had been, and she was wiping smudged lipstick from her lips. Barnes was cool as he walked her to the penthouse door, taking the key from his pocket, letting her inside first.

He locked the door after them, and grabbed Ishii by the arm before she made it further than the hall. She hit a wall, he bearing down against her now, all composure gone as he stole another kiss from her. The sword in her hand fell to the floor. Her desire matched his, surpassed him, and Barnes fell to his knees.

“I have been waiting so long for ya,” he whispered, and clutched at her dress, ran his hands up her waist, “I’ve been looking so long for ya – soulmate.”

Her fingers twisted through his hair. Barnes was kissing her leg now, rolling her dress up as he went higher. Ishii could think of nothing to say under the onslaught of so much emotion. Really, he was already saying it best.

“You’re so beautiful, soulmate – how can it be you? I want to ravish ya, fuck ya until you can’t stand, give ya everything,” Barnes murmured, and had her dress above her panties so that he kissed her through the satin, “-I wanna make ya feel.”

Ishii managed to unzip her dress, pulling it over her head. His fingers twisted around her garter belt, the clips that held her stockings up, slipping her panties to the side so his tongue could tease her better. She grabbed his cheeks, pulling him up, kissing him until he understood he was meant to carry her to the bedroom. She took no notice of the apartment she intended to buy, other than what she saw of the white walls of the roof, the silk sheets beneath her in the dark. What she felt was his hands on her legs, breath on her stomach, lips kissing above and below her soulmate mark. There was a pressure in her chest she hadn’t felt for years, in a sense more than physical.

A cool blade pressed against her skin, erotic against her heatedness. “…Where was that hiding, Sergeant?”

He used the switchblade to cut through the satin on her underwear, laughing at her question. “Call me by my name,” he whispered, between her legs again, “Tell how much you want me.”

“I want you,” she breathed out, “I want you to kiss me, and fuck me, and make me feel, James.”

He knelt and stripped immediately, and rained down kisses over her. When she had him cradled to her breast, Ishii rolled across the bed, ending up on top and in charge. Her legs caged his hips, a hand spread across his chest, the other reaching below and positioning him teasingly below. She ground against his length, and drew a deep groan from him. His fingers tightened painfully on her thighs.

“How can ya be real?”

She thought about those words each time he entered her that night. She thought about the way he spoke them, with so much husk and longing that it curled around the ‘r’s of the words. In the desperation of his hard, long, sensual fucking, there was frustration too. How could she be real, freckles all the way from her cheeks to the lips of her pussy? Hair so impossibly long and soft as true silk, so different from the imitations he outfitted hotel beds with. Legs that tightened around his hips, that turned white where he held them, that shook when he took her from behind. The stockings and garter belt were cute, and the heels were fun, but his world only rocked when she came by his hand, her own fingers twisted in his bed sheets.

And how could the tightness in his stomach be real? His head was light and filled with laughter, and he never laughed. He made fun, and he charmed, and he teased, but he never felt joy the way he had as a child. His boyhood returned to him that night, too, in memories of toys and bikes downhill in city streets, and the streetlight shining was the same he had once slept under out on the street. He was young and happy and had no blood on his hands, that night – and that could not be real. Sergeant James Barnes was an American-made killer.

Ishii fell sated and full of feeling into bed beside him. Like a mantra, she whispered, “How can you be real?”

Barnes rolled over and pulled her close, kissing her roughly and stroking her hair until her eyes were heavy and closing on their own. She fell asleep there, and he didn’t want to wake her, see her leave. Before joining her in dreaming, Barnes slipped off her heels and pulled the covers over them.

Likes always, his sleep was fitful and he woke early, as soon as those early morning rays were coming in through the open curtains. He turned one way, and then the other, so that he was looking at Ishii directly. His heart stopped again – thinking of when he’d said, “I’ve been looking so long for ya, soulmate,” – as he realised it was one thing to face a person in the dark and another in the morning afterwards.

She was still as enchanting to him as she had been when he had spotted her across the casino, but it was in a different way. She wasn’t defensive like before. There was no sword in sight. Her hair was mussed up, and her lipstick rubbed away. The nakedness of her shoulders and back was unguarded. He had to face her not as a business rival, and not as a faceless soulmate, but as a woman named Ishii.

She woke slower than he, and he enjoyed watching her. She stretched like a cat, and yawned like one too. Her morning ritual was to stare up at the roof and its ornate ceiling rose.

“…Ishi.”

She did not blink. “You are saying it wrong.”

Barnes propped himself up to look down at her. “Can’t I call ya by a nickname?”

“No,” she replied, and slid quickly out of bed. She found her underwear torn in two on the floor, and so skipped that and went straight for her shoes. “We are strangers,” she said.

“We’re soulmates, doll.”

She rounded on the bed and knelt over him as she had last night, pushing him down with one hand. Her garter belt and stockings were all she had on, and Barnes found his face hot once again. “I have said to you my soulmate will be my rival,” Ishii explained, “You have said – you said you would fuck them first, and we have done that – so you must move on to killing me, and we can be comfortable with that arrangement, because I will be in Japan in two weeks, after we close this deal – and there, a whole mob of yakuza will be waiting to take your head if our rivalry should end with a single scratch on me.”

Her brown eyes were not warm nor cold, but impersonal in a way he resented. Barnes retaliated by remaining naked as he followed her out of the bedroom and into the penthouse. The rooms beyond were open plan and flowed circularly. It was by far, more lavish than the casino downstairs. Ishii took this in, and then found her dress in the hall.

“These rooms add value to the property – I will think about raising my offer,” Ishii remarked, and then turned away from Barnes, “Zip me.”

He did so, then wrapped a hand around her waist so she was pressed against him. “I had ya speaking in tongues, doll,” he whispered into her ear, lips against her skin, “And I want my soulmate, so don’t go thinking this is the end of it.”

He released her a moment later. Ishii went straight for her sword, and then to the door. She turned and faced him one last time, to say, “We will be in contact to discuss the price of the hotel in a few days.” She walked out of there with her Dior dress and Kinamon-brand sword, a reclamation of the title; bitch.

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justabelfastgirl · 5 years

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Yet another post I did NOT want to be posting today. I had a book review scheduled that I’ve had to push because I just couldn’t believe what I saw this morning.

Maybe it’s my emotionally, exhausted state of mind, or maybe it’s my own personal situation (that my friends who read my blog know of), but this bugged me to the point I called the girl out on Instagram.

Should I have done that? Probably, not. She’s got 1.4 million followers and who am I to repost her screenshots from an Instagram makeup video she did (does anyone else fucking absolutely hate those? THEY ARE SO FAKE!)

What Happened

For those of you who don’t know who this lady is, her name is Sadia and she is a beauty influencer on Instagram.

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I’m not linking the Instagram account, nor am I linking the video merely because I’m already giving her enough publicity by even writing this up.

Balenciaga

They were originally produced in Italy and they’ve now moved to China. I know I’ve said to assume is to make an ass out of u and me, but 90% of companies that move their production to China do so for the very low price of producing. I’m not wanting to get sued, here, but do your own homework and you’ll see what I mean.

Balenciaga sneakers/trainers like those go for $780 or £540 if I was looking at the right ones.

Photo Credit: Balenciaga

Calling Her Out

Well, you can see what I said from my Instagram post, the screenshot is below. I’m not trying to be a gobshite, gain any kind of publicity or be a bitch. I’m genuinely really annoyed and upset about this, it’s really not okay.

Offering Money to Unhappy Followers

I couldn’t help but feel like this was hush money. I know it’s maybe her trying to rescue the situation, but there isn’t enough money in the world that would make what she did okay. I’m sure Balcengia as a company wouldn’t be too happy with someone cutting up their products in front of 1.4 million+ people that’ll view that video.

I didn’t screenshot this because it wasn’t appropriate to do so, but there was a comment on the video that was getting a lot of attention. A lady made the same point as me, that it was insensitive and inappropriate to post a video like that when there are so many people struggling, especially with the constant trends and marketing ploys.

She asked the lady to DM her with her Paypal information as she wanted to send some money to, “help you guys out. No questions asked.” The lady made it clear it wasn’t a ploy to get a quick buck, others then jumped on the comment that this particular lady had made, sharing their Paypal.Me handles and asking for money, too.

Again, I joke all the time about Jeffree Star adopting me, or just leaving me money in his will. This is all in good fun, and making fun of the situation I am in. I would never, ever go on a website and hand out my Paypal or bank information for anyone to send me money.

I was cringing between bouts of tears at these people, people can not only see your Paypal information that isn’t as “safe” as Paypal allows you to think it is, but they can see your profile picture and if your profile is public, your personal images which can then be used to find your Facebook, or hack your information. I’m not here to scaremonger, I’m here to be truthful and tell people the reality of the situation. Regardless of how poor I am, I would never be this moronic. People should be ashamed of themselves.

Think of the Kids

I’m pretty sure this lady is a mother herself, I only recently started following her after seeing a makeup look she did (that wasn’t one of those dumb Instagram videos). I made a point of mentioning the children watching because there will be children watching. I can count on one hand friend’s kids’, family members and kid acquaintances I know that would watch that and think, “Oh, that’s a good idea. Let me go get my trainers and try this.”

I’m just sad this is what it’s coming to, what happened to sitting doing makeup tutorials? That was never boring to me, there is no need for these stupid videos of people dancing around and making stupid faces while doing makeup. then again, maybe that’s why they’ve millions of followers and I’ve only a few thousand.

Rather Have a Few Thou…

I’d rather have a few thousand followers than have millions based on fakery. I try my very hardest to be a good person, I try even harder to never, ever judge a book by its cover, but when the cover is cutting up thousands of dollars worth of shoes while people like myself in a dire financial situation are crying because they have no idea what they’ll do money wise it really sucks.

I keep saying I’m not a crier and that I don’t cry often, and I honestly really don’t. However, I cried at this, again could be my exhausted state or the fact it hit a nerve, either way, I cried for a good ten minutes before I posted it on Instagram.

I won’t ask you to stop following people like her, as that’s hypocritical.

If you are an influencer reading this, please think about the type of posts you do, think of how it can impact people. I get it, everyone is a critic, everyone has a comment to make, and there will always be someone that’s unhappy with what you do. However, don’t make it easy for the trolls to call you out by doing stuff like this.

I’m so sad, I debated deleting all my social media accounts because I just couldn’t take seeing this stuff anymore. However, social media saved me when I was super low, so I’m stuck in a situation where I want my blog to do well, reach people, but I don’t want to be around social media anymore. So what do I do?

Sorry for the negative post, I just had to get this off my chest. I’m off to pick up my dog’s poop from the back garden for the 50th time this week.

Enjoy your Sunday.

Pin Me!

New post @LaureltonStudio #TheClqRT #bloggingtribe @TheBloggersPost @wetweetblogs @sincerelyessie @UKBloggers1 #bloggingbeesrt @BloggingBabesRT @bloglove2018 @womenwithgifts @ablogshare #GoldenBloggerz #bblogger #beautycommunity Yet another post I did NOT want to be posting today. I had a book review scheduled that I've had to push because I just couldn't believe what I saw this morning.

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avanneman · 6 years

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Lauren Gussis’ “Insatiable”—let me count the clichés. Okay, I give up.

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When word hit the street that Lauren Gussis, one of the “geniuses” behind the TV series devoted to heroic mass torturer/murderer “Dexter”, had come up with something even more shocking—a Netflix original about a fat teen-ager who became not fat and hence “Insatiable”, the howls of outrage among the easily outraged—those woke folk who seek to expel Nature with a pitchfork in particular—rang so loudly across the internet that even I heard them. The trope of “fat girl becomes gorgeous and goes wild” has always struck me as exceedingly wan in the first place, so I made a vague mental note not to see Insatiable, even by accident, and went about my business.

Then, however, I read a review in Reason by Glenn Garvin, “Ignore the Outrage Mob and Watch Insatiable”, which definitely hit me where I live—at least some of the time. Glenn assured me that Insatiable was a laff riot, and any contrarian like myself ought to watch the show, both on its own merit and as an opportunity to stick it to the pitchfork crowd via a witty review. Well, I’m always in the market for non-heavy TV,1 and, even though some of the funnies that Glenn offered up as proof of his argument—praising the show for “filthy” nicknames like “Bag of Boners”, for example—didn’t strike me as, you know, that awesome, I thought I’d take a look.

Well, be careful what you wish for—or, maybe, just be careful, because Insatiable is awful. It’s as if the producers said “we want stupid—Two and a Half Men stupid—but gay it up, a lot, and make it southern. That’ll be funny.” Because Insatiable is not about being fat. It’s about being gay, and about the sort of rejection kids experience for being fat as a metaphor for the rejection they experience for being gay.

But why, three years after the Supreme Court ruled that gays have a constitutional right to marriage, why are we making TV shows that are metaphors for being gay? Why not just make a show about, you know, being gay? Because, you know, people have been doing that already!

But I guess someone forgot to tell Lauren and Netflix—which used to be considered hip and edgy, rather than sleazy, dopy, and banal. Insatiable is not so much a bag of boners as a bag of gay clichés. Straight men are lecherous oafs who like to work on cars. Straight women are lecherous bitches who want to be president of the Junior League. Gay men are bitchy on the outside, sweet on the inside. Lesbians are, well, flannel.

Ostensibly the story of former fatty now teen femme fatal Patty Bladell (Debby Ryan), Insatiable is really about her beauty pageant coach Bob Armstrong (Dallas Roberts) and her best (and only) pal, Nonnie Thompson (Kimmy Shields), set in a sort of “Southern Living” suburb of (maybe) Atlanta, where the twinned and knotted kudzu vines of conspicuous consumption and social striving combine to wrap themselves around the very throat of humanity. Through a set of plot contrivances too lame to consider, Disgraced Lawyer Bob sees the now svelte and ready for revenge Patty as his vehicle for social redemption. As for Nonnie, well, as long as she can breathe Patty’s carbon dioxide, she’s happy.

I don’t know if Dallas Roberts is straight or gay, but everything about Lawyer Bob—his body language, his clothes, his fussy mannerisms and speech—screams gayness. He puts down a pair of vulgar broads—because all straight women are vulgar broads—by telling them “some people think red doesn’t clash with pink!” Feel the burn! When a sulky Patty says she’s going to skip the first day of school, Bob leads her back to the straight (so to speak) and narrow by offering her a “makeover”. He then brandishes a gleaming and polished makeup case that springs open in multiply cantilevered glory as though it belonged to the Great God Hermès himself! Behold these wonders!

Although the show makes mechanical fun of the southern beauty pageant “scene”, which to my mind is almost as lazy as making fun of someone for being fat, it can’t help taking Patty’s pursuit of pageant greatness seriously, because what are beauty pageants but show business? And what is show business? It’s not everything. It’s the only thing!2

Lonnie and Bob effectively appoint themselves as Patty’s entourage. She’s their meal ticket out of the suburban hell of conventional life that they both despise. She has the looks, and the selfishness, to be a star! A star! A star of our very own, and we won’t have to share her with anyone!3

Meanwhile, back in the real world, we see busty wives—virtually every woman in the cast except for Shields could get a job at Hooters—tearing open their cleavage at the drop of a hat, while the dudes show off their six-packs with equal regularity. Does anyone watch TV for this any more?

As for the jokes, well, we have obvious cheesy jokes—Patty’s up for “Miss Magic Jesus”—haw, haw, those damn rednecks and their damn Jesus—and inside cheesy jokes—she’s also in the running for “Miss Bareback Buckaroo”—“bareback” being gay slang for unprotected anal sex. Also funny!

Insatiable comes up with imaginative (sort of) ways to finesse the whole racial thing. The social queen of wherever it is we are—the president of the Junior League—is a black woman, though married to a white guy. And there’s an Asian girl whose mom is white, as though we entered some sort of post-racial Nirvana without even noticing.4 Everybody’s equal, everybody’s rich! Problem solved!

I originally planned to watch the entire season of Insatiable to prepare this crushing putdown. But half-way through the fourth episode, well, my soul cracked, and I surrendered—to common sense—and quit. Insatiable is a painful fraud, a “shocking” show that’s afraid that if it revealed its true subject—being gay—no one would watch. “Gender is not just fluid in this show,” exclaimed Glenn in the review that duped me into wasting four hours of my life, “it's Niagara Falls at peak flow.” “Gender fluid” is just the current euphemism for “gay”. How about letting the love that dare not speak its name, you know, speak!

Afterwords New York magazine thoughtfully offers a list of the ten “most scathing” reviews of Insatiable. Switching gears considerably, over at American Conservative, Harry J. Kazianis has a piece, “I Was That Morbidly Obese Guy”, that describes the many downsides of being “really fat”. For the most part, the piece is painfully honest, but I have to disagree when Mr. Kazianis remarks on the burden “of not fitting into a culture that worships beauty more than anything else.” Because it isn’t just “our culture” that makes fun of fat people.

When I was in Vietnam, our battery was sometimes invaded by a group of four-year-old Vietnamese kids, who would wait for the appearance of our one fat soldier. When he came in sight, they would shout delightedly “Beaucoups kilo! Beaucoups kilo!”

Yes, little kids will make fun of you if you’re fat, if you smell bad (“You stink!”), if you speak with a southern accent, or if you don’t speak with a southern accent. They will make fun of you if you can’t keep up, or don’t fit in.5 And, of course, it isn’t only little kids. When I was in law school, I once shouted “What’s the matter? Are you deaf?” to a young woman who I knew had limited hearing. I just forgot, because it was rarely noticeable. Innocence is not the same as virtue. In fact, it’s often the opposite.

See Jeeves and Wooster, Pretty Little Liars, The Windsors, Call My Agent! Season 1 and Season 2, and Archer. For the perils of “heavy TV”, go here and here. ↩︎

When Patty masters the “pageant walk” (thanks, of course, to Bob’s persistence), the soundtrack swells with triumph. ↩︎

The recent death of the great Aretha Franklin provided the occasion for the telling of a number of not so great anecdotes about the Queen of Soul, strongly suggesting that the average diva should be regarded as a natural wonder along the lines of an erupting volcano, best viewed from a distance of several miles. ↩︎

To further combat racial stereotyping, the Asian girl is dumb as a post. ↩︎

Johnny Carson used to say “Comedy is not pretty” because he knew how much of it is based on heartless ridicule. Once when the pleasingly plump Dom DeLuise was a guest, Carson made some joke about Dom’s weight and the audience booed. “It’s his job!” Dom admonished the crowd. ↩︎

#Lauren Gussis #Insatiable #tv

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