Department of English

Within this work, I engage with queer time in the video game Destiny 2 via an autoethnographic method that emphasizes the temporal interactions of players, characters, and narratives. I draw from my experiences playing this game with my brother, as well as years of watching him play, to build a contextual foundation for what it means to play Destiny 2. Then, I construct a theory of queer game time by combining formulations of game temporality, queer temporality, and queer gaming. This sense of queer game time conceives of time as a body that can be wounded, a force that can mold and be molded by characters, and a living thing that can haunt and be mourned. I interrogate how the individuality of player experiences, particularly in relation to a certain point in time, queers the world of Destiny 2 and its narrative. From there, I unravel the complex transitions of two characters across vast spans of space and time, tracing their shifting forms and fates as they wound and are wounded by time in turn. The temporal rifts that characters undergo then widen to include the broader narrative arc of Destiny 2; I present a queer hauntological method to disentangle the loss and grief that came about as a result of content vaulting. While some temporal wounds like content vaulting cannot be stitched or healed, in the end, players and characters alike can find solace in the multiplicity of moments that bind them together with the universe of Destiny 2.