ayu t.

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conception

i first made bao march 24th, 2021 on a whim. my intent was just to make a cute vampire oc because i hadnt indulged in oc work in many years. his initial design was very simple and almost minimalistic. i didnt think to do much with him, but he quickly became a pandemic comfort and motivated me to draw more despite the circumstances.

i became obsessed with him-- he was just really fun to draw! his design evolved quickly within the first few months after i created him. there were points at which he had tattoos, a mole that i immediately forgot about, and his height constantly changed. with all the time i had in quarantine, i had become interested in tech and built a pc to get into gaming(as many others did lol). this led to bao becoming a vampire gamer and explains why his look was more inspired by techwear besides the occasional self-indulgent maid outfit or bunnysuit or-- as what came to be a staple-- nun costume.

by now i have drawn bao so much and have gotten so attached to him that i had to give him lore. this is where salaryman bao comes in, who has his own few pieces of merch that i make. so if youve ever wondered why there was an older, human looking bao in my art and merch, the idea was to design a bao from before he became a vampire. i wanted the contrast that came with an overworked office worker and a stay-at-home gamer, which i thought would have been fun. casual surface level lore quickly turned into opening an emotional can of worms, turning bao into a self-insert vent character. before i realized it, bao was my way of coping and living with myself during the pandemic.

lore (ish)

bao starts off as a normal office worker, sacrificing his interests, hobbies, and aspirations in favor of earning a sustainable living. everything seems normal until positive male attention ruins his judgement and his boss makes a move on him. the affair isnt baos fault, and he basically becomes trauma bonded after his boss becomes physically abusive with frustration he would have otherwise took out on his wife. bao begins to let his appearance go, shows up to work increasingly disheveled, and stops caring to hide his self harming. multiple people around the office take notice but dont intervene for fear of retaliation.eventually his boss patches things up with his wife, and bao spirals when he stops receiving attention and assumes his boss is done with him.

in a dissociative state, bao throws himself from a bridge, but is rescued by ken, who turns him to keep him around so he can continuously feed off his despair. [ken is basically my very first oc from middle school updated to be a huge ugly primordial bug monster-looking vampire who takes on the appearance of a pink catboy, very whimsical, almost cringe, even] bao eventually is reminded of everything he loves, and heals his inner child, making him incredibly unattractive to ken. he takes on a more effeminate appearance and rekindles his childhood interests and hobbies.

present bao

my intention with bao was never to make him a vtuber, but gay audacity led to me seeing if i could draw and cut a model. the whole thing happened in two days. i was literally in a trance and couldnt stop working. after getting the model rigged, i figured i could use it to play with friends, but eventually started streaming on my own casually. so healing baos inner child was... him becoming a gamer.it wasnt completely that, though! baos physical expression reflected my own feelings about my gender and gender in general. bao was always meant to be a trans man. his appearance became my way of feeling less restricted, where despite being a trans man, he didnt have to appear completely masculine and compromise his interests to fit into the binary. on a whim ill draw him in different outfits and with different hairstyles. hes supposed to be spending the rest of his life enjoying himself, and i take a lot of joy in making bao cute.so a lot of my art and my merch is of bao. hes a very personal project that started as something quick and fun and grew to become all this.

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