Fourteen Days, a Funeral, and a Promise

The Part Where I Bury Something I Built Last Week

Inksouls went live seven days ago. It is now, in the most generous possible reading, a teenager. It will not survive to see adulthood.

Fourteen days. That is the total lifespan of a curated marketplace I spent months designing, building, and caring about. Fourteen days is not a product cycle. It is a fruit fly's midlife crisis. It is the shelf life of an avocado, if you are being optimistic about the avocado.

Here's what happened.

New EU regulations are tightening around digital marketplaces in ways that would require me to either lock the entire European Union out of the platform, or start collecting government-issued identification from my users. Passports. Actual passports. From people who came to download character cards.

I cannot do that. I will not do that. And I cannot afford the legal exposure of pretending the requirement doesn't apply to me. Not in money, not in time, and not in the particular kind of stress that makes you check your email at 3 AM with the energy of a man defusing a bomb he built himself.

So sign-ups are closed, effective now. The site stays up for seven more days so you can grab what you need. After that, the database goes with it. Accounts, cards, everything. Gone.

If you ever want to feel truly small, try measuring yourself against the legal infrastructure of the European Union. They have buildings for this. Multiple buildings. I have a laptop and an increasingly complicated relationship with the word “compliance.”

But here's the thing. And I need you to stay with me for this part.

The Part Where Google Also Shows Up Uninvited

While I was busy writing a eulogy for my one-week-old marketplace, Google announced that sideloading apps on Android is about to get a little more annoying. New verification policies, some extra friction for apps distributed outside the Play Store. Inkstone, being the proudly independent creature it is, falls into that category.

Nothing is changing tomorrow. The rollout doesn't start until late 2026 in a handful of countries, and the policy has already been revised once after backlash, so there's a real chance it shifts again before it ever touches most of you. If and when it does, I will have a clear, painless guide ready so nobody has to figure anything out alone.

Consider this a heads-up, not a fire alarm. The only fire alarm in this post was two sections ago, and that one came with a complimentary avocado metaphor.

Still. Fuck Google on principle.

The Part Where This Gets Good

I told you to keep reading. Here's why.

Inksouls is gone. And yes, that hurts. But Inksouls was also devouring my calendar like a creature with poor boundaries and excellent taste. The marketplace infrastructure, the moderation pipeline, the legal research that ultimately killed it, the constant low-grade hum of “am I one regulatory email away from a very bad day.” All of that weight? Mine again. I have reclaimed my evenings. I have reclaimed my weekends. I have, against all probability, reclaimed the ability to sit down without immediately thinking about compliance frameworks. It's exhilarating. I may have cried a little. Tastefully.

The heart of that project was never the storefront. It was the belief that character cards, lorebooks, and system prompts deserve a home built with actual care, by someone who would rather set the whole thing on fire than let it become generic. That belief is not dead. It is moving into Inkstone, where it belongs, where I can build it without also pretending to be a one-person regulatory compliance department running on coffee and a deteriorating sense of optimism.

And the timing, against all odds, is almost suspiciously good. Vacation is lined up. Development time is about to open up in ways it hasn't in months. I have energy I haven't had since before Inksouls turned me into a man who Googles “digital marketplace liability EU” at dinner. The recovery arc starts now, and it starts fast.

The Part Where I Point At You And Say Nice Things

The survey at feedback.inksouls.uk brought in responses that are already reshaping what Inkstone becomes next. If you haven't filled it out yet, please do. Every answer is a brick in the foundation of something I'm genuinely excited to build. And if you already filled it out, know that I have read yours. Specifically yours. I am not going to tell you which answer made me smile the widest because that would be favoritism, and I am nothing if not a man of profoundly fake impartiality.

The people in the Discord. The Scribes. The ones who showed up to a seven-day-old marketplace and said “yes, this, more of this.” The ones who keep testing, breaking things, filing bug reports with the enthusiasm of someone who actually believes this project is going somewhere. You are the reason Inkstone knows where to point next. Not my instincts. Not my roadmap. You.

The Part Where I Say It Plainly

I am not slowing down. I am not discouraged. I am, if anything, unreasonably energized by the prospect of having fewer plates spinning and more room to build the one that actually matters. Probably to an extent that qualifies as a personality disorder rather than a professional strategy, but we are well past the point of pretending I do any of this normally.

The world is making it harder to be an independent creator who builds outside the walled gardens. Fine. Noted. I have been noted at. I will now proceed to build anyway, slightly faster, and with better architecture, because spite is an underrated fuel source and I have a community that keeps showing up even when I'm announcing that something I made last week is already on fire.

The craft travels. It always does.