1. Rapid-fire switching between feigned compassion/familiarity, vs. genuine feeling and “hard truths” — threats in Michelle’s case (from the movie) and accusations of pain and trauma in Brenda’s case. Meant to catch you off guard and be momentarily confused and more open while they follow up with their attack.

One iteration of this pattern: opening with a thank-you before making an unfair request/demand

Another iteration: opening with an emphatic apology

Another iteration: an acknowledgment of someone’s emotion or pain, “you have a right to be angry,” or Brenda apologizing about Vlad’s grief for his grandmother as an opener before diving straight back into her unfair demands…

2. Appealing to those in the audience with smiles, casual familiarity via shared jokes or references, air of gentleness and affection, sandwiching whatever difficult-to-swallow demand they’re trying to push.

3. Talking for a long, uninterrupted stream, reiterating points with the push-pull pattern to inundate the listener with their ideas and make it impossible to pin down their simplified ask and thus, to criticize it.

4. Interrupting others by continuing to speak, not ceding any ground during arguments by talking as long as possible until the other party gives in and stops talking, just so there isn’t an overwhelming salad of sounds.

Related to the above: acting as though they haven’t had a voice or a say when interrupted or when others are speaking — even though they have said plenty of words but has purposefully said very little of meaning, which is by design. They speak endless platitudes and “phraseology”, then complain when others take up speaking time, as though they're being silenced just because they know that if they get to speak the most, nothing of substance will be said and no resistance to them can be built, but if others speak, things will be moved along, since most people speak in an effort to actually communicate and clarify, not obfuscate.

5. Stating the negation of whatever they are or whatever they’re about to do, e.g. “I’m not saying you can’t ___”, “I’m not manipulating you”, “I’m very emotionally intelligent.” Also can be a statement of opinion that is difficult to refute that’s supposed to lend them credibility, like “I have a lot of experience with situations like this, and I think…”

6. Related to the above: claiming expertise in psychology, interpersonal dynamics, emotional intelligence, sociology, etc. (positioning them as “enlightened” above everyone else), and then condescending to share their wisdom, i.e. they have all the knowledge and are, very generously, letting us in on what they’ve discovered — like they’re doing everyone a big favor.

7. Slight stroking of victim’s ego, complimenting them or telling them that they “have all the control in this situation,” which has the added effect of painting themselves as impotent, powerless, and thus not culpable for harm or responsibility.

8. “I hate to break it to you” tone of voice, mix of condescension (you poor thing, you can’t understand what’s happening here) and false sympathy/compassion; distracts from the fact that what they are “breaking” to you is actually optional and a desire of theirs, instead of a foregone conclusion.

9. Hand-shakey, faux-compromising, “everyone’s happy” talk. Constant assertions of how they’re striving for an agreement and fairness.

10. “Unpack”

11. “I hear where you’re coming from…” eventually followed up by a “respectful” disagreement. The longer the “I hear where you’re coming from” bit goes on, the less sincere it probably is. Brenda and Michelle both affect very strong tones of voice, facial expressions, and slow delivery of speech to hammer home the performance of compassion.

12. Asking for a “dialogue” not in sincerity wanting to communicate and share understanding, but because they know the realm of words is where they can wrest back power; another variation is to request to “keep the conversation going”

Easier to see this happening outside of the conversation, when you can take a step back; you’ll realize no progress has been made on a disagreement/issue, that, in fact, they’re literally trying to talk their way out of culpability.

This pattern becomes the most obviously repetitive in the face of someone who refuses to buy their act. When faced with someone who is clear, blunt, and confrontational, they will keep parroting a request for a “dialogue,” to imply their victim is being uncivilized, uncontrolled, and not listening.

13. Accusation of lack of clarity to excuse their own lack of inaction or response.

14. Bringing up honesty and good faith, as if implying some parties so far haven’t been honest or being in good faith, i.e. you, the emotional one. All of this is under the table, implied, and thus impossible to call out.

15. Hammering their points home most urgently when their victim is clearly at their weakest or just set a painful boundary; nearly cooing their apologies/thanks/acknowledgement of pain while continuing to push their agenda, while the victim is pleading with them to drop the subject, stop talking, stop messaging them, to stop hurting them.

On the surface, they look apologetic and sympathetic, like they’re offering help or an olive branch, but in reality they know they will cede ground if they stop now. They have to trick the victim into thinking that their boundary does not need to be respected, that if someone is talking in a gentle, sweet tone to them, they can run roughshod over their boundary. And once they’ve convinced the victim of this, it becomes so much easier for the manipulator to destroy all other resistance.

BIG asterisk at the end: obviously some of these phrases just pop-up when people are acting in earnest and are not trying to manipulate anyone, but when they're all happening together? when you feel, for some inexplicable, nebulous, foggy reason, that it's hard to voice objections or disagreement in the face of someone who talks like this? it's fucking manipulation.

i fucked up the sponge. you would not believe how badly i fucked up this sponge. i basically wussed out when folding and didn't fully incorporate the cake flour like a fucking AMATEUR, and then the batter started freaking out and bubbling badly after i added the butter and salt. should've whipped the eggs slightly more, then FOLDED the flour super thoroughly, AND poured the batter from a height and tapped it a bunch to knock out the bubbles. baked for 25 min which was perfect. should've cut the edges sooner before cooling, so they'd be cleaner.

pastry cream recipe was so whack, i should've used the serious eats recipe like i usually do. this one was easy enough, but called for so much cornstarch and no salt, which i should've been skeptical of. i don't think this cream tastes that good, but whatever. (side note: this is the food and wine recipe)

making the mousseline by whipping the butter was super easy. i'm guessing the huge amount of cornstarch in the pastry cream made the end result much more stable, but i really dislike the flavor.

assembly was a PAIN. i sliced the genoise without too much grief, only to reveal a super dense cake covered with flour pockets, where i didn't fully incorporate the flour. yummy. then putting together the parchment paper collar was annoying, and i didn't trim it down before starting, which made everything harder later. it's a really hot day, so i was panicking while piping the mousseline, AND we only had sandwich sized ziplocks, so i had to constantly refill them while piping. that's why i didn't take my time to fill in the gaps between the strawberries on the edge because i was in a real "fuck it" headspace at that point.

ALSO: the recipe barely had enough mousseline for the whole cake. i initially wanted to cover the top with mousseline in a spiraling teardrop pattern, but instead had to hide the cake top with a tiny bit spread across the center, dust with freeze-dried strawberry, then do my usual little poofs around the edge because they're easy and i was dying at that point. garnished with wood sorrel that liza foraged from our backyard. it's edible and just tastes tart.