In the seventeenth episode of the podcast, Sandile and Fadzai shine bright with their first choice - Caroline Forbes.

A main character of The Vampire Diaries, Caroline is introduced as one of Elena Gilbert's best friends, though slightly removed from her as compared to Bonnie Bennett. Her time in the show's first season largely deals with her insecurity around Elena, and with others' opinions of her, as well as her pursuit of romance while ignorant of the supernatural goings-on in Mystic Falls.

The second season begins with her transition into a vampire, which transforms Caroline both as a person and as a character becoming more involved in the main plot. She quickly becomes the most well-adjusted of the vampires in the Mystic Falls Gang, shedding a lot of her past issues and growing into a stronger, self-asserted, and caring woman - rivaling few as the best character on the show.

(This episode focuses on Caroline in seasons 1 and 2.)

Content Warning: This episode contains discussion of emotional abuse, mental coercion and manipulation, physical abuse, racism, sexual abuse and assault, stalking, suicidal ideation, and torture.

More specifically, Caroline's story in the first arc of Season 1 includes her sexual abuse and assault at the hands of Damon Salvatore; the assault is discussed in specific detail from (00:21:45) to (00:27:08), and more generally throughout the episode.

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E-mail: animalattackpod@gmail.com

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Podcast: It Was an Animal Attack

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Spin-off! Sandile and Fadzai play six degrees of separation with CW shows and actors, get into Kaos and its untimely cancellation, and opine on the casting of Wiccan and Hulkling after the end of Agatha All Along. They also duke it out over the website TV Tropes, and its impact on media critique.

Content Warning: This episode contains discussion of racism and ethnic erasure in media.

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

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Chapters:

(00:05) - Lauren Cohan, The Walking Dead, Supernatural

(02:25) - Fadzai's bid for a CW role

(03:25) - Sebastian Roche, Supernatural, Destiel

(04:25) - Six degrees of CW separation

(07:56) - Mawaan Rizwaan's "Are You Checking Me Out..."

(09:15) - Kaos and its untimely cancellation

(12:22) - Orpheus, Eurydice, and Hadestown

(13:28) - Reinterpretations of myth, fairytale, and history

(14:58) - Ian Somerhalder's retirement from acting

(16:47) - Gossip Girl, The O.C., and actor relationships

(18:08) - MORE six degrees of separation

(19:08) - TV Tropes and its impact on media critique

(21:11) - Debating the terms "anti-villain" and "anti-hero"

(25:18) - "White Fang"-ing, aka why Sandile should never speak

(27:01) - Little Women (2019) and Little Women (2014-2019)

(28:01) - Agatha All Along, ethnic erasure, Billy and Teddy's casting

(30:28) - Sandile conducts an impromptu physics lesson

(32:50) - Fadzai explains Azimov's Three Laws of Robotics

(35:14) - Sandile and Fadzai trade boat stories

Spin-off! Fadzai has finally seen Interview with the Vampire S2, so your hosts download on Armand All Along, unreliable narration, the future of the Immortal Universe, and the vampire genre in visual media (Sandile also recounts the bizarre case of "Swifties v de Lioncourt, 2024").

Content Warning: This episode contains discussion of domestic abuse, gaslighting, grief and loss, manipulation, mental illness and related stigma, Nazism, sex trafficking, sexual assault and abuse, slavery, and suicide.

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

Chapters:

(00:46) - Armand All Along

(03:20) - Claudia: doomed by the narrative

(05:00) - Changes for the movie vs the show

(06:11) - Vampirism and the frozen psychological state

(09:24) - Lestat's involvement in the trial

(10:46) - The Lestat de Lioncourt image rehab

(11:46) - Vampires, evil queers, and theatre

(12:46) - The future of the Immortal Universe

(13:46) - Swifties v de Lioncourt, 2024

(15:55) - Cousins Klaus Mikaelson and Lestat de Lioncourt

(17:44) - Merits and drawbacks of unreliable narration

(21:02) - Claudia and the vampires that failed her

(22:18) - Immortality, perspective, grief, and forgiveness

(23:48) - Santiago - a fraud and an opp!

(25:00) - The vengeful Louis precedent

(26:20) - Madeline Eparvier - controversial? Brave?

(27:55) - Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles

(29:10) - The eras of vampire media

The myth, the legend, the queen of mildly inexplicable return. Fadzai and Sandile meander down the road to hell with Katherine Pierce, aka Katerina Petrova.

A key figure in the first season of The Vampire Diaries (though only making a physical appearance in its final episode), Katherine is introduced in flashbacks to 1864, the last year of Stefan and Damon Salvatore's human lives. As a guest in their home, she begins a secret relationship with each of them, before revealing that she is a centuries-old vampire; she toys with the boys, intending to turn them into vampires and leaving town with them at her side, but is seemingly captured by the founders' council in an ousting of the vampires that have infested Mystic Falls.

In present day, Katherine is revealed to have never been captured, and returns to town 145 years later to plague the Salvatore brothers - as well as her doppleganger, main character Elena Gilbert. She is the primary antagonist for the first half of season 2, and maintains a varied presence in the show for several seasons after, making her the longest-running villain on the show. With her strength, cunning, and willingness to do anything to survive, Katherine takes her place as one of the most iconic characters in the series.

(This episode focuses on Katherine in seasons 4 and 5, as well as the series finale.)

Content Warning: This episode contains discussion of emotional abuse, familial abandonment, gratuitous violence, mental coercion and manipulation, obsession, physical assault and abuse, racism, sexual assault and abuse, slavery, stalking, suicide and suicidal ideation, and torture.

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

Better you die than her! Fadzai and Sandile escape monsters by becoming them with Katherine Pierce, aka Katerina Petrova.

A key figure in the first season of The Vampire Diaries (though only making a physical appearance in its final episode), Katherine is introduced in flashbacks to 1864, the last year of Stefan and Damon Salvatore's human lives. As a guest in their home, she begins a secret relationship with each of them, before revealing that she is a centuries-old vampire; she toys with the boys, intending to turn them into vampires and leaving town with them at her side, but is seemingly captured by the founders' council in an ousting of the vampires that have infested Mystic Falls.

In present day, Katherine is revealed to have never been captured, and returns to town 145 years later to plague the Salvatore brothers - as well as her doppleganger, main character Elena Gilbert. She is the primary antagonist for the first half of season 2, and maintains a varied presence in the show for several seasons after, making her the longest-running villain on the show. With her strength, cunning, and willingness to do anything to survive, Katherine takes her place as one of the most iconic characters in the series.

(This episode focuses on Katherine in seasons 2B and 3.)

Content Warning: This episode contains discussion of emotional abuse, familial abandonment, gratuitous violence, mental coercion and manipulation, obsession, physical assault and abuse, racism, sexual assault and abuse, slavery, stalking, suicide and suicidal ideation, and torture.

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

In the sixteenth episode of the podcast, Fadzai and Sandile double the trouble with Katherine Pierce, aka Katerina Petrova.

A key figure in the first season of The Vampire Diaries (though only making a physical appearance in its final episode), Katherine is introduced in flashbacks to 1864, the last year of Stefan and Damon Salvatore's human lives. As a guest in their home, she begins a secret relationship with each of them, before revealing that she is a centuries-old vampire; she toys with the boys, intending to turn them into vampires and leaving town with them at her side, but is seemingly captured by the founders' council in an ousting of the vampires that have infested Mystic Falls.

In present day, Katherine is revealed to have never been captured, and returns to town 145 years later to plague the Salvatore brothers - as well as her doppleganger, main character Elena Gilbert. She is the primary antagonist for the first half of season 2, and maintains a varied presence in the show for several seasons after, making her the longest-running villain on the show. With her strength, cunning, and willingness to do anything to survive, Katherine takes her place as one of the most iconic characters in the series.

(This episode focuses on Katherine in seasons 1 and 2A.)

Content Warning: This episode contains discussion of emotional abuse, familial abandonment, gratuitous violence, mental coercion and manipulation, obsession, physical assault and abuse, racism, sexual assault and abuse, slavery, stalking, suicide and suicidal ideation, and torture.

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

Introducing Spin-Offs! A series of bonus episodes that contain bits of discussion about shows, movies, books, and other media (whether on- or off-topic) that were cut from the main episodes of the podcast. These are unstructured, un-themed, and a little incoherent, so feel free to pick your poison from the chapters in the description of each episode.

In this first instalment of the series, you'll hear Sandile and Fadzai's thoughts on the decline of Game of Thrones, general MCU fatigue, a number of similarly-named X-Men characters, and so much more.

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

Chapters:

(01:05) - Game of Thrones decline

(03:56) - Why does everyone hate the MCU?

(16:55) - X-Men, The Wolverine, & Japanese mutants

(20:20) - Longlegs (2024) was kinda disappointing

(21:20) - CW vs superhero media

(22:43) - How long should a TV series be?

(24:01) - True Blood and vampire relationships

(26:19) - Lie to Me, Divergent, & Shailene Woodley's career

(28:59) - Pretty Little Liars & Gossip Girl

(30:32) - Immortals (2011) & its many vampire actors

(32:33) - Romance tropes in fiction

(36:37) - The Odyssey, Percy Jackson, & Norse mythology

(39:00) - Sandile gets a bunch of geography wrong

(40:20) - Fadzai ponders school districts and inequality

(44:15) - Celebrity Twitter hacking scandals

Burn that bridge! Sandile and Fadzai hop, skip, and jump through storylines as the show tries to finally make sense of Lorenzo "Enzo" St. John.

Joining The Vampire Diaries halfway through its fifth season, Enzo is introduced as a vampire being held by Augustine when Damon is captured, having himself been there a decade already. After helping him get through years of medicalised torture, and hatching a plan for their escape, Enzo is abandoned by Damon who chooses to turn off his humanity to save himself, and presumably perishes in a fire.

In present day, it turns out Enzo was spared by a member of Augustine, and has remained under their capture and experimentation for over sixty years. The season's events result in his escape from his prison, and he focuses his efforts on rebuilding his friendship with Damon and finding his place in the new world, though his propensity for violence towards the other Mystic Falls characters - and his lack of relevance to the goings-on in the main story - make that road virtually impossible.

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

Content Warning: This episode contains discussion of familial abandonment, gratuitous violence, isolation, medicalised torture, mental coercion and manipulation, obsession, stalking, suicide and suicidal ideation, terminal illness, and torture.

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