Stefan von Basini is a character from The Confusions of Young Torless, a 1906 Austrian novel masquerading as your average bildungsroman. Except with way more philosophizing, premonitions of fascism, and rape. His player on the Sueniverse is Skazka, and he is currently her most played character.
His first name as per movie canon is Anselm, but the only thing Skazka really got out of tha
Basini's play-by, for lack of a better one. Tom Gillard is a tall drink of water, how did this happen.
t movie was that Matthieu Carriere was a sweetie and that Beineberg apparently looked a lot like Tom Riddle. His sister's name (she of the Garter Incident) is Brigitte.
Vague Personal History[]
Basini is a member of the nobility, but his family itself -- a widowed mother and at least one sister -- is struggling financially. Sending him to boarding school was probably their best bet, but Basini was a poor student who struggled in the military academy's rigid atmosphere. He became an object of mild contempt to his classmates, failing at masculine pursuits like fencing as well as his classwork. Mostly, he was only really pathetic (at least from the POV of Torless, unreliable narrator much?) for the fact that he kept trying to be cool, even if giving up might save face. Unfortunately, part of how he tried to reinforce how confident and cool he is is buying people things and showing off how much pocket money he has-- which wasn't much. So he stole, oblivious and probably caring less about what would happen if a fellow student or (God forbid) a teacher found him out. When someone not unpredictably caught him -- his charming classmates Beineberg and Reiting, and the tagalong Torless -- they took the matter of corrections into their own hands. Basini cared more about keeping his head down, getting along and not getting expelled than he cared about preserving his already rather flimsy dignity. So he endured his classmates' torments, faintly hoping that sooner or later they'd let up on him, even be his friends. In the environment of a boys' boarding school (entirely homosocial, if you don't count the village prostitute) events quickly took a sexual and sadistic turn. And judging by the fact that Ska is playing a Basini who hasn't left the school in utter disgrace, and who's actually pretty light on the having-been-fucked-uppery, he seems to have weaseled out before shit really hit the fan.
Now he's staying in Paris with his benefactor, his uncle, and other relatives, recovering psychologically as much as he can as well as physically for his return to school. He's... putting this off, subconsciously sabotaging his own health. He smokes, trying to prove his adult masculinity and effortless maturity, and drinks, mostly because he likes to.
On The Verse[]
He got acquainted with László after encountering him in the operahouse, having wandered off from chaperoning his younger sister (she of the garter), and the two had drinks together, managing to be remarkably awkward (and to introduce Stefan to the appletini) but being friendly enough. His next action creeping around at the operahouse was a less benign one -- spying outside the girls' dressing rooms. The dancers apprehended him quickly, clawing and kicking him as well as pelting him with shoes and bottles, but being distracted before things could escalate further. So much for the fairer sex. Meg Giry took a small amount of pity on him (very small) and helped him hobble off into a disused dormitory to hide and clean himself up. Basini explained the rather noticeable injuries (toe shoes hurt) as the result of tripping through a trapdoor... or a fight, depending on who was asking.
Walking home from his tutor's in late evening, he encountered the vampire Daniel. Daniel gave him the impression that he was about to be raped, causing the boy to more or less mentally shut down. Stefan became quite compliant, but rather than making the encounter easier, this seemed to irritate him. He tore at Basini's clothes, took the opportunity to remark on his bruises, and bit his femoral artery, seemingly just to fuck with him and because throats are boring. Basini only began to fight once the fangs came out, and promptly fainted.
His acquaintance with László came in handy in the aftermath; he was the one who found him, wrapping him in his coat and taking him to the hospital. Basini was, understandably, badly shaken, and even his own disturbing resilience was tested by the encounter.
Basini got his own shoe-throwing revenge, or attempted it, by lobbing one of his own shoes at Meg while she was eating lunch at an outdoors cafe. Unfortunately his own shoes were not wood-reinforced toe shoes, and he missed by a good 10 feet, only alerting Meg to his presence and rendering himself unable to hobble away. Meg recognized him, but primarily seemed interested in his now-short hair -- and once he came closer, his visible poor health. She foisted on him a critical review of his nearly-shaven head, one of his appearance in general, bread and jam and a photograph of her sweetheart Tybalt, in that order.