# I Couldn't Grow Up with a Cat, So I Made a Django Package to Fix That

> Source: <https://dev.to/wandawwl/i-couldnt-grow-up-with-a-cat-so-i-made-a-django-package-to-fix-that-2ba0>
> Published: 2026-06-03 04:01:27+00:00

I always wanted a cat but never had one as a child. Decades later, I used Doubao API to merge my childhood photos with my cat's images, then built a reusable Django app (`django-doubao`

) that does AI image fusion and image-to-video generation. Here's how it works and why I built it.

When I was a kid, I longed for a cat. My mother wouldn't allow it. I pressed my face against the neighbour’s window, watching their tabby stretch and roll in the sun – a hollow ache in my chest.

Only after forty years did I finally get my own cat. But then a new sadness crept in: I couldn’t grow up with her.

So I devised a trick.

On Doubao (ByteDance’s AI platform), I took my old, faded childhood photos – gap-toothed, laughing – and merged them with my cat’s plump white face. Suddenly, we were playing together. Then I made videos: the child chasing the cat through a field of flowers, wind lifting our hair, years dissolving.

Each creation sent ripples through my heart – from a quiet centre to the corners of my lips and eyes.

I started on Doubao’s official website, but soon I thought: I’m a programmer. Why not build my own app?

I got a Doubao API key, set up a Django project, and wrote a `utils.py`

– not three hundred lines – that became the key to my own toy box.

**My ritual:**

I created **two Django views**:

When I saw the boy and the cat move across the screen, something long empty inside me was gently filled.

I packed the whole thing into a Python package, `django-doubao`

, and published it on GitHub.

`while`

loops needed.

```
django-doubao/
├── doubao/
│   ├── models.py        # ImageGeneration, VideoGeneration
│   ├── views.py         # generate_image_view, generate_video_view
│   ├── urls.py          # routes with namespace
│   ├── utils.py         # API calls: generate_image, submit_video_task, poll_video_result
│   ├── templates/       # standalone Vue3 templates (no base.html required)
│   └── migrations/
├── tests/               # pytest + mock, 15 tests all green
├── pyproject.toml
└── README.md
```

**Key decisions**:

`login_required`

or `user_passes_test`

yourself. Each project is different.`base.html`

. You can override them.Install:

```
pip install django-doubao
```

Add to `INSTALLED_APPS`

:

```
INSTALLED_APPS = [
    ...
    'doubao',
]
```

Set your API key:

```
DOUBAO_API_KEY = "your-key-here"
```

Include URLs:

```
# urls.py
path('doubao/', include('doubao.urls')),
```

Then visit `/doubao/image/`

to generate images, and `/doubao/video/`

to turn them into videos.

I could have kept using online tools. But as a programmer, I chose to build a small world with code – one where the child and the cat can finally run, daydream, and watch maple leaves fall together.

If you have a similar wish – to revive an old photograph or animate a memory – I hope `django-doubao`

helps you take fewer detours.

Code is like bricks. The important thing isn’t how complex it is, but what you build with it.

*The cat is purring beside me. The video loops on the screen. I turn off the light, leaving only the screen’s glow – and that old hollow feels truly filled.*

**What do you think? Have you ever used AI to fill a childhood gap? Let me know in the comments.**