hi bowie

before this change, the way to tell the difference between an account that was deacivated versus one that was banned by tumblr was simple: if a deleted account's username was formatted as [original username]-deactivated1234567 (any sequence of numbers) then it was deleted by the account's owner, if that text wasn't present then it was banned by tumblr. now that this grace period's been implemented, however, this added text to the username won't appear on deactivated accounts until the 30-day period is up.

which brings us to gooseworx.

if this change wasn't in effect, we would immediately know whether she was banned by tumblr or if she chose to deactivate of her own volition. there would be no debate on whether this was yet another transmisogyny-inspired banning of a transfem, through mass reporting from "tadc critical" (which are, frankly and for the most part, gooseworx harassment) accounts or staff just being mad at a transfem being transfem too loud and openly.

this update leaves room for debate in this situation. this update gives tumblr plausible deniability.

with them being increasingly held to account for banning transfems en masse "for any reason or no reason at all" (actual quote from the emails received by some transfems in the most egregiously blatant targeted banning of transfems yet), what do you think's more likely- that @staff implemented this update just now out of the goodness of their hearts, or that it was designed to make it less likely for them to get caught next time, and give them more wiggle room to ban transfems as prominent as gooseworx?

i know which answer's most likely. @staff has burned up too much good will for me to give them the benefit of the doubt.