As if you could outrun me!

“Perhaps she’ll find that real darkness is more to her taste than feeble twilight.”

Damon, the bad vampire brother, says this to Stefan, the good vampire brother, about Elena, the woman they both want – Damon mostly because she’s Stefan’s (but of course) and Stefan because…I dunno…she smells like bacon just like Bella? Stefan never really gives a really good reason, other than that she looks like his long-dead (like five centuries ago) paramour…

Yes, I am reading The Vampire Diaries.
(No, I have not watched the TV show. I have no interest in watching the TV show.
I mean, look at them: dork, tease, bigger dork. Also, vampires do NOT wear cowboy boots. EVER. Trust me.
Or pleather.)

I whizzed through The Awakening and The Struggle. I…like it. I don’t quite know why. Elena isn’t especially nice or interesting in any way; the secondary characters are dull as dishwater, the good vampire is oh-so-angst-filled, and the bad vampire is campy, like Johnny-Weir-as-vampire. (Huh. Now that I write that down, it makes sense. It would NOT shock me to discover that Johnny Weir IS a vampire.)
The writing is SO MUCH better than Twilight (way to set that bar, I know…).
In fact, that brings me to the quote I started with - “Perhaps she’ll find that real darkness is more to her taste than feeble twilight.” Heehee, I said to myself, clever dig at the OTHER vampire book.

Two pages later, Damon shows Stefan how much more powerful he is – first, he rips a sapling out of the ground and flings it, roots dangling, across a clearing. Then he disappears and reappears in a treetop. Then he disappears and reappears again, silently and quickly, right next to his brother, hissing in his ear about being so strong and fast and, you know, VAMPIRE-LIKE.

You do not have to have seen the movie as many times as I have (18?) or even read the book as many times (only twice) to recognize this scene.
From Twilight.
When Edward tries to scare Bella out of being in love with him. He leaps around and rips up trees and dangles from tree branches, all the while sneering, “As if you could outrun me! As if you could fight me off!”

So then I checked the copyright date.
The Vampire Diaries are copyrighted 1991.
That’s right.
Almost fifteen years before Twilight.

Stephenie Meyers says she hasn’t read many vampire books.
She says she dreamt the whole Twilight saga.
I am not saying she is lying.
I am just saying, I find that scene VERY odd.
Because frankly, it’s not like there are a ton of other similarities – if nothing else, Smith’s vampires appear to be enjoying some sort of sexual activity, unlike poor repressed Edward.

But, similarities or no, my heart will always belong to Edward.
I don’t WANT to outrun him or fight him off.
Show me your awesomeness, sparkly vampire boy.
Stefan, go back to high school.