Was it ever confirmed Lippmann was based on Walter Lippmann?
No.
But wait, there's enough evidence! (Ty anon im using this ask as an excuse to ramble and getting these off my chest)
As we all already know, most of the characters in BSD, especially ability users, are based on real life authors. Stormbringer explicitly stated that bsd!Lippmann was "an extremely powerful skill user" so he must be based on someone. And guess what? There happens to be a writer with the exact name as his.
Walter Lippmann was an American journalist, politician, and writer. He was deemed as "the most gifted and influential American political journalist of the twentieth century". His works mostly took the theme of public relations and stuff. Sounds familiar?
I'd like to add this part from the etymology section of his(bsd) wiki btw, just in case you didn't know.
Does it end there? No, not quite.
Let's take a look at his most popular work; Public Opinion.
"...The pictures inside the heads of these human beings, the pictures of themselves, of others, of their needs, purposes, and relationship, are their public opinions. Those pictures which are acted upon by groups of people, or by individuals acting in the name of groups, are Public Opinion with capital letters."
"The pictures in our heads", page 29
People, generally, have some sort of "persona" of themselves that they would try to plant on other people's minds. Kinda like the Japanese "three faces" proverb, you may say. And how do they achieve it? By only presenting that persona; by masking; by acting.
"Royal personages are, of course, constructed personalities. Whether they themselves believe in their public character, or whether they merely permit the chamberlain to stage-manage it, there are at least two distinct selves, the public and regal self, the private and human."
"The pictures in our heads", page 7
Simply said, him being an actor might be a reference to (or a representation of) that human nature which P.O. talks of. An actor acts—they dive into the role of another character that's not them. (Which, when you think about it, is just what us humans do on a daily basis, except they do it professionally and for a living, which when you think about it again—)
Mr. Lippmann also published books titled "A Preface to Politics" and "A Preface to Morals" which is....interesting.
Okay, "preface" and "face" technically are different. Though they still share somewhat a similar meaning.
But hear me out. Let's go back to the persona thing. Generally, what people would want to be perceived as is as the perfect, ideal versions of themselves. To make that happen, they would have to put on a good first impression. And what's usually the first thing that people notice about a person? Correct—their appearance; their face.
Lippmann(bsd) was multiple times described as "perfect" (like okay asagiri, he's pretty, we get it), especially regarding his looks (and capabilities). See what I'm saying?
Lippmann was the stage face, the public image of the Port Mafia. He was the preface to the Port Mafia. He created the pictures in people's head of the Port Mafia.
As a verb, however, "face" has another meaning:
He negotiated with front companies, met and talked with political figures, and even dealt with the press if push came to shove.
I feel like this might be merely a coincidence or a pun, though. But the fact that his field of work in the Port Mafia was specifically negotiating with the "real world" is definitely not something Asagiri just pulled out of thin air—or so I believe to be the case, at least, having read this paragraph.
"This is the underlying reason for the existence of the press agent. The enormous discretion as to what facts and what impressions shall be reported is steadily convincing every organized group of people that whether it wishes to secure publicity or to avoid it, the exercise of discretion cannot be left to the reporter. It is safe to hire a press agent who stands between the group and the newspapers. Having hired him, the temptation to exploit his strategic position is very great."
"The nature of news", page 344
Oh, by the way, remember this scene?
It's just a silly, filler interaction that seemed not to reference anything, but just you wait.
"Men cannot long act in a way that they know is a contradiction of the environment as they conceive it. If they are bent on acting in a certain way they have to reconceive the environment, they have to censor out, to rationalize. But if in their presence, there is an insistent fact which is so obstrusive that they cannot explain it away, one of three courses is open. They can perversely ignore it, though they would cripple themselves in the process, will overact their part and come to grief. They can take it into account but refuse to act. They pay in internal discomfort and frustration. Or, and I believe this is to be the most frequent case, they adjust their whole behavior to the large environment."
"Intelligence work", page 383
Then again, these are but my interpretations and/or speculations which I'd like you to take with a grain of salt, as I could very well still be wrong (because Asagiri loves to trick us, apparently).
I could go on and on and on and on and on but I'm afraid I'd just be blabbering nonsense at some point. Thank you for reading my (hopefully coherent) ramblings.
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WOAHHHH NEW OC STORY IDEA ALL A SUDDEN
okay so vampire guy works at a morgue and feeds from the dead bodies but it’s never Enough. it keeps him under control but he does needs fresh blood once in a while. anyway this human guy dies, was brought to the morgue, and the vampire guy drains him of all his blood (as he does to every corpse) but this human died recently and his blood was fresher and tastier than the others. vampire leaves the dead human in one of those corpse shelves for the night (vampire guy lives in the morgue somewhere) and the next morning BOOM. the human guy is awake and alive and healthy as if nothing happened. immortality moment!! woah
and the vampire guy is like SWEET!!! new infinite food source of fresh delicious human blood!! now he doesn’t have to feed from those gross corpses anymore or go hunting and risk being killed by pesky vampire hunters.
but vampire guy still has to work at the morgue. that’s his whole business. that’s his home and how he needs to make money to buy food for his new human bloodbag (guy can survive without food but his blood tastes better when he’s not starving).
and it’s strange for the vampire guy sometimes. he’s always spending time around dead humans and this is the first time he’s gotten close to an actual live human before. and even though he’s keeping him captive, he still likes making conversation sometimes. it gets lonely being an immortal vampire who’s hasn’t had a close relationship in decades, and who’s instinct it is to suck the blood out of every human he meets. and since immortal human guy is trapped there and has nothing to do, he might as well talk to him. he’s lonely too and now just found out he’s immortal. he doesn’t wanna be alone forever
but obviously he hates being fed from by a vampire and desperately wants to escape. vampire guy kills him a bunch of times just because he Can. sometimes he drains him of all his blood when he’s extra hungry, sometimes he just kills him for disobeying or trying to escape to teach him a lesson. sometimes he kills him for fun, for the thrill of the hunt. dying is PAINFUL as fuck to the human. he hates dying even though he always comes back fully healed.
sometimes the human wants more things to keep him occupied so he’s not bored all day trapped in the basement of a morgue (or maybe he’s kept locked in a corpse shelf during the day, extremely claustrophobic and dark, with no way out, trapped next to a bunch of human corpses. who knows). but the vampire doesn’t wanna waste his hard-earned cash on buying his human silly unnecessary things just because he’s bored.
so sometimes he lets the human help him work. vampire guy owns the morgue and has no other employees, and only works at night to avoid sunlight, so human wouldn’t be able to call for help anyway. human guy hates being around dead bodies but it gives him something to do and he technically gets paid for it in a way. now vampire guy gets things done twice as fast and has more money and free time too. he buys his human the stuff he wants, like books or puzzles, and they sometimes play games together.
human was a nobody. he probably died from some freak accident and was brought to the morgue by the hospital. he didn’t have a family or any loved ones that claimed his body or set up his funeral. nobody came looking for his body to bury or cremate because Nobody cared that he was gone. and that just makes things a whole lot sadder because even if he does somehow escape the vampire, where’s he gonna go? he’s legally dead. Everyone thinks he’s dead. he’s supposed to be dead. there wouldn’t be anywhere to go or anyone to go to because he obviously can’t tell people he’s immortal, that would just cause more questions, and surely being experimented on by scientists would be worse than whatever he’s going through right now, right?
so human guy has to accept his life now, as an immortal bloodbag for a vampire who works at a morgue. his life is filled with blood and death, but there’s nothing he can do about it. maybe vampire guy eventually gains sympathy for him, and starts to feel bad for his pathetic excuse of a life. maybe they eventually become friends. or maybe the human stabs a wooden stake through the vampire’s heart. who knows
anyway these guys have existed in my head for nearly an hour and they don’t even have names but i am going insane over this holy shit???? RAUHHHH i’ve gotta make picrews dude i gotta draw them. new blorbos. new brainrot. i prommy i’ll still get tllr chapter 13 out today or tomorrow but WOAHH look at these new little guys they’re so silly
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