Your hosts kick off their rewatch of The Secret Circle! This week, Sandile and Fadzai cover:

Episode 1, "Pilot": The death of Cassie's mom (no accident) forces teenage Cass to move in with her grandmother, where young witches await her to complete their coven and unlock their full power.

Episode 2, "Bound": There's peer and other pressure aplenty to get Cassie to bind the Circle, all except from Faye who doesn't favor the idea of her reckless whims being controlled. Grandpa Henry pays a call to investigate a complaint of misused magic.

Content Warning: This episode contains discussion of arson, murder, and racism.

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It's the first MID SEASON, where Sandile and Fadzai do an episodic rewatch of a cancelled one-season show in the genre of supernatural drama series! Take a detour to Chance Harbour as they revisit "The Secret Circle", a CW hopeful from the creators of "The Vampire Diaries" that didn't quite stick the landing.

Join your hosts for this brief introduction before jumping into the first official episode!

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Podcast: It Was an Animal Attack

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In this S1 special of It Was an Animal Attack, Sandile and Fadzai present the Vampriety Hour! An hour (or two) of fun, games, laughter, and unserious musings themed around The Vampire Diaries and the end of the podcast's first season.

00:00:00 - Intro

00:01:16 - Segment #1: The Progressively Harder Vampire Diaries Quiz

00:24:43 - Segment #2: Game of Quotes

00:38:30 - Segment #3: Vampire Diaries Trivia Bunker Quiz

00:46:45 - Segment #4: The Vampire Diaries Cast as D&D Characters

01:18:40 - Segment #5: Tier Ranking Almost Every Important TVD Character

01:58:00 - Outro

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Podcast: It Was an Animal Attack

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In this S1 special of It Was an Animal Attack, Fadzai and Sandile put two generational giants of the genre in the ring - The Vampire Diaries and Buffy the Vampire Slayer! Character archetypes, genre tropes, story inspiration and influences (and sometimes, direct rip-offs), along with the usual episode nonsense.

Content Warning: This episode contains discussion of gratuitous violence, homophobia, murder, racism, religious fanaticism, sexual assault, and slavery.

Questions, queries, or just to say hi!

E-mail: animalattackpod@gmail.com

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Podcast: It Was an Animal Attack

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In this S1 special of It Was an Animal Attack, Sandile and Fadzai present the inaugural Animal Attack Awards! A celebration of the conclusion of the podcast's first season, and a joyous farewell to The Vampire Diaries, marking its many memorable characters and moments.

Content Warning: This episode contains discussion of conversion therapy, familial abandonment, gratuitous violence, homophobia, murder, racism, religious fanaticism, sexual assault, and slavery.

Questions, queries, or just to say hi!

E-mail: animalattackpod@gmail.com

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Podcast: It Was an Animal Attack

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Spin-off! Your hosts talk Storm in X-Men: Evolution and various other adaptations of the X-Men comics, The Little Mermaid and its surprising metaphors, and some early to mid-2000s vampire-related Disney movies. Also: a Tyra Banks throwback, more X-Men comics (the Krakoa era!), and the silliness of "gingercide".

Content Warning: This episode contains discussion of fetishisation, internalised bigotry, misogynoir, and racism.

Questions, queries, or just to say hi!

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Podcast: It Was an Animal Attack

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(00:00:05) - Ororo Munroe / Storm in X-Men: Evolution

(00:11:34) - The Little Mermaid: Fairytale, Movie, Metaphor

(00:14:14) - Disney vampire movies and shows

(00:16:28) - Iris West, DC female reporter girlfriends, and so-called "gingercide"

(00:18:06) - An iconic panel from the X-Men comic, Bishop: War College

(00:20:10) - Once Upon a Time and the currency of hope

(00:21:10) - An America's Next Top Model throwback moment

(00:22:10) - Characters dying mid-sentence / mid-thought

(00:23:21) - Dark romance book tiktok memes

Hell-raiser! Fadzai and Sandile close out the season finale with a fiery bang alongside Bonnie Bennett!

One of the main characters of The Vampire Diaries, Bonnie is the best friend of lead character, Elena Gilbert, and a budding witch with ties leading back to Salem and the founding of Mystic Falls. As she discovers more about her powers, and the existence of vampires and the greater supernatural lurking in her town and out in the world, Bonnie is at first hesitant to get involved, given the historical fate of witches in and beyond her family. By the end of the first season, though, she reaches a point of certainty that she wishes to be the town's protector from vampires and the harm they cause to its innocent people.

Beyond this point, however, Bonnie finds herself constantly having to compromise her principles given her friends' association with vampires - and some of her friends becoming vampires. From a narrative standpoint, this is largely a result of Bonnie's relegation as a character in the story, with focus placed on her usefulness as a witch in solving supernatural problems for the group. With several deaths, depowerings, and damn-near farcical tragedies under her belt, Bonnie's time in the show is mired by trauma and neglect - especially as the one black main character - and she is in retrospect someone in the show, and in the genre, who deserved so much better.

(This episode focuses on Bonnie in seasons 7 and 8.)

Content Warning: This episode contains discussion of addiction, defeated mental state, familial abandonment, familial neglect, grooming, gratuitous violence, mental coercion and manipulation, physical abuse, racism, sexual abuse, assault and related victim blaming, slavery, and suicide and suicidal ideation.

Audio Note: This episode was updated with 14 minutes of audio that were initially missing on release (currently 00:44:56 to 00:59:03).

Questions, queries, or just to say hi!

E-mail: animalattackpod@gmail.com

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Podcast: It Was an Animal Attack

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Living dead! Fadzai and Sandile planeswalk the line between life, death, and several realities with Bonnie Bennett.

One of the main characters of The Vampire Diaries, Bonnie is the best friend of lead character, Elena Gilbert, and a budding witch with ties leading back to Salem and the founding of Mystic Falls. As she discovers more about her powers, and the existence of vampires and the greater supernatural lurking in her town and out in the world, Bonnie is at first hesitant to get involved, given the historical fate of witches in and beyond her family. By the end of the first season, though, she reaches a point of certainty that she wishes to be the town's protector from vampires and the harm they cause to its innocent people.

Beyond this point, however, Bonnie finds herself constantly having to compromise her principles given her friends' association with vampires - and some of her friends becoming vampires. From a narrative standpoint, this is largely a result of Bonnie's relegation as a character in the story, with focus placed on her usefulness as a witch in solving supernatural problems for the group. With several deaths, depowerings, and damn-near farcical tragedies under her belt, Bonnie's time in the show is mired by trauma and neglect - especially as the one black main character - and she is in retrospect someone in the show, and in the genre, who deserved so much better.

(This episode focuses on Bonnie in seasons 5 and 6.)

Content Warning: This episode contains discussion of addiction, defeated mental state, familial abandonment, familial neglect, grooming, gratuitous violence, mental coercion and manipulation, physical abuse, racism, sexual abuse, assault and related victim blaming, slavery, and suicide and suicidal ideation.

Questions, queries, or just to say hi!

E-mail: animalattackpod@gmail.com

Refs and Links: IWAA S1

All our online stuff!

Podcast: It Was an Animal Attack

Twitter: @animattackpod

Instagram: @animalattackpod

Tiktok: @animalattackpod

YouTube: @animalattackpod