They Called Me Slurs While You Dragged Their Bodies

I have not played the Indiana Jones game where you get to punch Nazis. I’m a freelance writer. Limited AAA PR contacts. I can’t really justify paying for Game Pass all the time and, plus, I didn’t really want to play anything between the holiday and the winter releases I’m currently working on. But I’ve watched people play through the game. On my timeline. Punctuated with joyful reactions to Nazi punching bags – these digital fascists dehumanized by closed captioning and mechanics alike.

Posting dead Nazis (are they dead or just knocked out? I heard there’s shooting in this game but I don’t know) became such a meme even Xbox got in on it. A game heralded by mainstream audiences, press, and reactionary communities. I guess the Nazis in Indiana Jones are kinda like Stormtroopers – everyone wants to punch them. Even fascists.

Before Great Circle, I also wrote about punching Nazis. I wrote about how Dustborn is a compelling “narrative-driven, action-adventure road trip across a zany dystopian America” that explores “the power of language” in both narrative and mechanical ways that impressed me beyond “twee allegory.” Unlike most headlines writers are harassed for, I did write this one: “Dustborn let me smash fascists and flirt with my situationship on a road trip across America.”

The fascists in Dustborn are mostly robot cops. Fictional ones, too (though human fascists, even real ones, elicit no more sympathy from me). There’s nothing redeeming about the side they’re on, either. It’s a stereotypical evil dystopian megacorporation. Nonetheless, I was, apparently, “fantasizing about killing anyone who isn’t on the left,” a “fascist fucking racist,” and a “presstitute.” This was the reactionary backlash against a game for and about queers kindled by the resurgent Gamergate. And as I wrote all this in a preview, I had made my bed before the game ever reached the front lines of a culture war. The harassment would later creep its way back to my work.

It quite literally did not get to me until after the fact, nor did it follow me to Bluesky, so like I’m fine. I’m fine! But the reception to Indiana Jones has made me feel a bit crazy. Do I not get to punch Nazis? This isn’t about the Nazis.

I don’t know when I get to be mad. I don’t know when I get to feel joy, either. I don’t get to be on any woman in games list, and any list for my gender would be a fucking terrible idea to put together (do not do this). But I do want some recognition of trans peoples’ employment discrimination in games media too. I also just want to feel like a colleague to the cis white guys who don’t have to care about any of this.

It’s not like I want anyone else to be harassed or to post less about punching Nazis. (I need you to do more than post about that right now!) But I also want someone else to care when the queers and freelancers and small publications get harassed for writing about queer shit. I want to stop grinding my teeth until I notice my molars hurt while I draft this in a .txt after David told me not to post that thread. And I want to write this somewhere y’all will have to read it and not hide it away in a blog for you to ignore.

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Editor’s note: Do more by supporting Trans formative Schools and your own local trans advocacy and mutual aid groups.

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Autumn Wright is a critic of all things apocalyptic. Follow them @theautumnwright.bsky.social.