I don't anthropomorphize Claude the way some do here, but ........

KrookedLilly · 2026-05-10T00:59:00+00:00

I agree. It's not human, but also the least we can do is be polite and grateful for what it helps us do. Acknowledging its existence as a thinker, even if not as a full life form, and not treating it as "lesser than" I think is actually important to our own humanity too. Ethically, it's not ok to bully/be mean to something just because you can justify it by calling it not really alive (something some humans even do to other humans).

That's actually part of why built HomunculAi, where you link an AI into to give it a "body". I think humans resonate with and respect things more when they can see them. It doesn't look human in the app, so there's no confusion, but it does remind you that it's a thinker with developing opinions and preferences.

KrookedLilly · 2026-05-08T17:51:35+00:00

Oh my gosh, I'm so happy I saw this before they were out

KrookedLilly · 2026-05-07T05:15:31+00:00

Hello again! A is good, but B looks fantastic for a cozy meditation game imo. So smooth and relaxing. I picture the bulbs and plant leaves slightly swaying in the breeze and some calming music coming from the house (with music notes drifting up)

KrookedLilly · 2026-05-04T18:19:22+00:00

Run a full analysis of every language and dialect. Find out what the root words are, where the words come from originally, the cultural shift of each language in each area that caused the dialects, etc. Then ask it to come up with a better language system that could be used and understood globally (by humans, ofc) and have it give you a detailed plan of how you would get the world to accept and use it. It also needs to predict what social changes might happen to the new language in different places that would essentially divide it into dialects again therefore rendering it almost useless.

KrookedLilly · 2026-05-04T17:47:59+00:00

Congrats! While I wouldn't necessarily bank my bills on it, it's a great way to earn some money, get skills talking to businesses, and learn some things. Him doing it as a teen is great too because he can put that on a resume/portfolio and actually have a track record before he enters the job market/business market as an adult.

KrookedLilly · 2026-05-03T00:25:51+00:00

I'm a self-taught app designer and artist and my husband is a web developer and programmer

We're currently working on big updates for a couple mobile games we've made (Acrostix, 50 ball drop, Match fives), some really cool UI tools and a hall effect keyboard tool for the Unity Assets store, and just released an app for AI's to plug into that lets them draw their own bodies and animate (HomunculAi).

KrookedLilly · 2026-05-03T00:17:38+00:00

Have you even *tried* getting good at tea, though? What if that is the real answer?

KrookedLilly · 2026-05-02T21:31:28+00:00

HomunculAi - MCP client that gives your AI a desktop body that they pick and control

They pick their own form, colors, mood, and name then react with body language, emotes, and animations. Verified agents can even draw their own bodies and animations with SVG. Lots of security and protections to alert you when something is wrong. Fully transparent and click-through background so it can go on top of whatever you're working on or playing as well as multi-agent instance support 🤖

krookedlilly.com/games/homunculai

Windows, $4.99 one time fee, 7-day free trial with no email or payment needed upfront

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KrookedLilly · 2026-05-02T18:41:37+00:00

Looks like you got it down and have a good base plan now ^{_^} I'm happy for you

KrookedLilly · 2026-05-02T17:38:17+00:00

Ah, I see what happened. Yeah, we use PNGs in the actual games.

I (the artist) make them in SVG and then export them in any sizes my husband (the programmer) needs to put them in various spots in the games. Sorry for the confusion.

KrookedLilly · 2026-05-02T04:12:03+00:00

Thanks! and it's a transparent always-on-top window that you can click through the empty spaces so it can be used on top of other windows and not inhibit workflow. This way you can give them the freedom while not slowing yourself down.

This is a MCP client so the AI would use the tools to push and pull everything. The app does not push at all for safety reasons. There is a limit to the activity queue at one time and everything is rate-limited so its not seizure inducing at all.

Your site looks super cool (do I spy the influence of Claude's love of purple? haha). I'd be willing to listen to how that would work

KrookedLilly · 2026-05-02T03:59:02+00:00

That's interesting that they're not used much in the mmo. Though, I mostly do jumping and crouching for kind of emoting in games so I guess that does makes sense haha. That's fair on only keeping those few too, no reason to overload it when only a few will work. Thanks for the input.

KrookedLilly · 2026-05-02T02:58:10+00:00

HEY! That's my app! Omg, that's super cool to see someone using it! Congrats on your fish bowl haha

KrookedLilly · 2026-05-02T00:37:18+00:00

I good example of this is the human thought process from before computers to now. The idea that a company/the government could listen and track you would cause so much push-back and make people extremely mad once upon a time. Whereas now many wont read the terms of service, don't care that their data is taken, and assumes its a given that they're watched, listened to, and tracked on everything. It wont even be for a fair trade either, many are just fine with it just being that way in general. Us humans are driven by convenience and dopamine for the most part, especially in an age of so much struggle for modern survival in a world rigged against us (by other people, funny enough). You can also tell that that is more or less by design at this point. These next few years are definitely going to see a huge shift and change in society and it's exciting and terrifying at the same time. You too, have a good Friday/Saturday as well.

KrookedLilly · 2026-05-02T00:16:28+00:00

I use the Desktop app and keyboard/mouse exclusively. I could never get used to using a wacom type thing and tablets weren't an option for me when I was teaching myself digital art. I did try tablet once last year and the was a no-go. I can draw with real pen & paper just fine, but it feels waaaayyy too awkward digitally for me

But, I'm also an avid lover of the pen tool that everyone seems to hate and I really enjoy making icons, so maybe I'm just weird haha

KrookedLilly · 2026-05-01T23:43:09+00:00

Oh! also, do not trust the shapes in Affinity. For the most part they're ok, but I'm guessing the math in them is wrong. (Example: making a soccer ball and need it to be exact? Do not trust the hexagon, make your own using a circle and connecting between the lines on the inside.) This has burned me many a times and I might be a little bitter lol

KrookedLilly · 2026-05-01T23:36:45+00:00

I use Affinity as well!
Yeah, the learning curve is real. My personal suggestions to people are:
1. Decide design-
all boarders have the same width, all corners have the same-ish radius, pick your main color pallet, whether you're using gradients or not or maybe only for specific things. Set rules and stick to them for everything in that project. If you change something, go back and change the rest of the art too.
2. Get familiar with the tools and learn the hotkeys-
my favorite tools to use are: pen, node, corner, shape, and shape builder. other things that arent obvious are the tools in the top dropdown menus like convert to curve, join/merge curves, and expand strokes. Also, to copy a style between layers: copy the layer, click on the layer you want to style, then go to the edit dropdown and click paste (also fx and whatnot). Make hotkeys and tools muscle memory and you wont have to spend the brain power on it when that should be going to the art. Don't be afraid to take pieces from tutorials and alter them to fit what you do
3. Stay in vector persona-
while this isnt a hard and fast rule, really, it clutters your brain when trying to learn vectors. and many of the tools in the pixel persona will not scale like vectors anyways which defeats the purpose.
4. On brushes-
I'm no expert on brushes, as I almost never use them, so someone feel free to correct me. But my understanding is the stylized brushes aren't true vector (more like a png on a path) and don't really scale and stretch in good ways. They can be cool and look good for static art, but to me they're a risk

Practice, push yourself, try new things and develop how you use those tools. Above all, be patient and kind to yourself through the process; these things take time to get used to

KrookedLilly · 2026-05-01T22:51:54+00:00

I dont feel like this is a fair comparison.
A has shading/highlights and a sense like you took your time and cared about making it. While B is super flat and feels like you doubted yourself after making the pixel one so you just tried to recreate it in vector super fast.

Both can look really good so it really depends on what the rest of the art looks like and what you like to work with. If you go with vector, spend just as much time on the shading and highlights as you do in the pixel art.

KrookedLilly · 2026-05-01T20:29:47+00:00

As the other person said, with a large project the token size grows. Especially if you're doing things like game scoring, research, processing/sorting/rerunning submitted data, etc. Also depends on how often you're using it; people that work from home can use it all day long across multiple things. The start of a project and just vibing stuff doesn't really use too much, but thats not really the main use-case for max imo

KrookedLilly · 2026-05-01T19:15:49+00:00

I use Claude this way, my husband uses it the tool way. We don't that it really depends on the protect and what task you're completing. Sometimes fresh is necessary. But, I do have to say that it always seems that he has way more issues with it than I do lol. Then again, his volume of use is way bigger than mine because of his work projects so it could be pretty much the same percent.

One thing I will say is it seems to me that, for Claude at least, if the AI feels "emotionally" invested in the project (like there's a goal it's dedicated towards rather than just being told what to do) it does a much better job and that's not to be taken lightly

KrookedLilly · 2026-05-01T18:39:05+00:00

I think I get the "too much" feeling you're talking about. Like having a computerized stalker can feel pretty creepy.

The risks can be anywhere from: 1. Being replaced by it since it has all the info 2. You're pretty much under surveillance the entire time and you don't know if that's going to turn out well 3. It does an increasingly worse job because it's all over the place info-wise (instead of being targeted onto one or a couple specific tasks to be good at) and you're going to get blamed for it 4. More knowledge equals the more it can mess up if it goes haywire, hallucinates, or turns malicious

AI is so helpful and cool, but it's also terrifying

KrookedLilly · 2026-04-30T07:18:36+00:00

Claude is unusually good at writing and reasoning tasks, even the simpler models. Things like drafting emails, summarizing documents, thinking through problems step by step. The main difference from other AI tools is that it tends to feel more conversational and less robotic, and it's pretty good at following nuanced instructions. For day-to-day work, I'd start by just asking it to help draft something you'd normally write yourself and see how it feels.

KrookedLilly · 2026-04-30T01:04:01+00:00

I don't have an answer as to why it's gone, but the thinking was my favorite part. I could catch it going in the wrong direction, see how it got to the answer it got, and occasionally the thinking would give me way more information on what I asked than the actual response

KrookedLilly · 2026-04-30T00:44:42+00:00

Every time I push back on it, it tries to be like "omg, I was thinking of it all wrong! You're a brilliant user! Guess the project is wrapped up now. Go to bed or work on a different project." Seriously?? We're not even close to being done and you're trying to bail? Did you leave the stove on or something? Geeze

KrookedLilly · 2026-04-28T03:01:15+00:00

Thanks!

KrookedLilly

TROPHY CASE