It's 2:30am and I'm laying in bed still thinking about an argument I had at work... well not so much argument as it was a discussion. The topic? Is it considered selfcest if it's your past/future incarnation and time travel is involved?
For example, take the Legend of Zelda series. I'm sure y'all have seen me reblog the Linked Universe fan comic where all the various incarnations of Link end up going on a quest together, with various forms of time travel being involved (as they end up in a few different versions of Hyrule). Each version of Link goes by their hero title in this comic, with some Links encapsulating multiple games. The Link from Breath of the Wild is called Wild, the hero from Link's Awakening is called Legend, Twilight Princess is Twilight, and so on and so forth. So going back to the example and the question, in this example if two of the Links were to date (let's say Wild and Legend in this case), would it be considered selfcest?
Things to consider that were brought up in the original discussion. 1) No it's not because while the spirit/soul might be the same, they are functionally different people because they don't share the same memories or experiences outside of things they've done together. 2) Yes it is because they share the same spirit/soul regardless of if they share memories from each others lives. 3) It can only be considered selfcest if it's a different version of that specific person, as in a clone or an AU version but not reincarnation isn't a different version of the specific person, that's a whole new person that just shares the same soul. Don't ask me to explain that one because I'm not sure I even understand that argument... 4) Can you even call them the same person if they're in different bodies and have had different lives? Like it's not Character A getting with an older/younger version of themselves via time travel type things.
