I actually use GUI Emacs more often than terminal Emacs. But when I'm deep in a CLI-centric workflow, deploying over SSH, running commands, maybe taking notes, it's much more convenient to stay in the terminal. And when I need to glance at an image, a screenshot or a PDF in that context, it's nice not to have to leave. I started this purely out of curiosity, just wanted to see how far the Kitty graphics protocol could go in Emacs. When I realized you could get surprisingly far with zero dependencies, I decided to build it out properly for the Emacs community rather than just for myself.

Displaying images in terminal Emacs was considered basically impossible for a long time. Whenever new users coming from other TUI editors or terminal-centric workflows asked about it, the answer was always "just use GUI Emacs". That's a valid answer, but it's nice to finally have an alternative.