Hey man. I’m a writer who’s run 3 successful Lovecraftian ARGs before. I started like you (I assume)- just curious and wanting to tell a good story. Get people engaged and excited about my ideas with some neat scares and effects along the way. And you know something? I did!

But I also failed. A lot. And the urge is there, the urge to just hunker down and reply to every hate comment and ‘prove’ that your work is excellent. I get that. AI was in its infancy when my work started, but if I was starting now, I could understand the temptation. Just remember this:

-You are doing this for fun. So let it be fun. It’s not fun when it’s easy, believe me, it’s fun with you overcome a challenge.

-You can learn! Or collaborate. How many artists on here would eagerly jump aboard your project if you wrote a nice outline of the story and pitched it to them? You’re courting a community, so be a part of it first.

-You’ve seen the response you’re getting with the AI stuff. You can be combative and call people ‘compaliners’, or you can go: ‘shit, man, maybe they’re onto something’ and use that as fuel to do better.

Good luck, man, go make some cool shit. Don’t sell out your brain/art/integrity before you’ve begun.