PodCastle, Episode 925, January 2026
This powerful story follows a protagonist who cycles through multiple reincarnations, repeatedly finding and losing their soulmate across different historical periods and cultures. The narrative explores how queer love has been suppressed, punished, and erased throughout history.
The story begins with the narrator’s memories of a past life in the Mediterranean, where they and their lover pledged to find each other across lifetimes. Through subsequent reincarnations, they reunite during China’s Qing dynasty (where the narrator is murdered by fellow soldiers who call them “rabbit bastard”), in 1970s America during the AIDS crisis, in colonial Indonesia as traveling performers, and finally in a contemporary setting.
Each lifetime brings both reunion and tragedy. In Qing China, the narrator catches a glimpse of their soulmate—now an imperial official—but is beaten to death for being gay. In 1970s America, they build a beautiful life together, marrying privately and supporting the early LGBTQ+ rights movement, but lose each other to the AIDS epidemic. In colonial Indonesia, they join different dance troupes—the narrator performing with lengger lanang dancers who embrace femininity—and find love again before Dutch colonizers destroy their community.
Between deaths, the narrator encounters Yanluo Wang, the Chinese god of death, who eventually proposes making them a deity. Filled with accumulated rage from lifetimes of persecution, the narrator transforms into a rabbit and attacks the heavenly realm, tearing through the gods who allowed such suffering. They demand to know who declared their love impure.
Yanluo Wang ordains them as Tu’er Shen, the god of love between men, offering them the chance to decree change before living one more mortal life in a world shaped by their divine power.
In their final reincarnation, the narrator is born into a transformed world where same-sex love is accepted. They reunite with their soulmate under a ginkgo tree—the same setting as their tragic Qing dynasty meeting, now recontextualized with hope. When their partner reveals he is transgender, the narrator’s immediate acceptance (“If you say you are a man, then you are a man”) demonstrates how their divine intervention has created not just tolerance, but genuine understanding.
The story powerfully employs the rabbit as a recurring symbol—from the Qing-era slur to the protagonist’s divine lagomorph form—transforming an image of vulnerability into one of fierce resistance. Through cycles of death and rebirth, the narrator’s suffering crystallizes into righteous wrath that literally reshapes cosmic and earthly reality, ensuring future generations can love freely without the persecution that haunted them across centuries.
Hello! I’m Audris, a Chinese-Indonesian author and editor. I’m an alumnus of the distinguished and inclusive Tessera Editorial Mentorship Programme. I’m here to help polish your book to the best it can be, and while I’ll read just about anything, I specialize in Fantasy and Horror.