Amelia
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aemlai.bsky.social
Amelia
@aemlai.bsky.social
47 followers 98 following 86 posts
Dr A! Creative & Critical Writing PhD at Sussex - queer intimacy in Les Mis.

Disabled writer, freelance editor, working on a funky little timeslip novel.

She/her or they/them.
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aemlai.bsky.social
It's been an interesting week...
A photo of a PowerPoint slide projected onto a large screen. The slide says "Oxford-Bloomsbury Fantasy Summer School" and features an illustration of a little red dragon flying in the sky over an image of Oxford's skyline.
September 25, 2025 at 3:49 PM
aemlai.bsky.social
Me, return from a gorgeous family holiday in pieces over the stray cat I accidentally befriended and had to leave behind? Apparently, apparently.
A photo of a black cat with pale green eyes and tiny white streaks in his fur, sitting on grey stone with green plants around him.
August 19, 2025 at 3:41 PM
aemlai.bsky.social
Logging OFF!
A photo of an outdoor swimming pool looking out over green hills and a blue sky.
August 4, 2025 at 11:10 AM
aemlai.bsky.social
Yep, that's Dora.
A black dog's paw poking through the railings of a banister. Dora, a black labrador, sprawled out on her back on the stairs with her upside-down head facing the camera and her paw poking through the banister railings. Her teeth are showing.
August 1, 2025 at 2:30 PM
aemlai.bsky.social
This time last year, Ollie's absolute limit was paddling. Now, she's started going on strike and refusing to budge when we try to leave the beach because she's not done playing yet thank you very much. (Dora, meanwhile, has always secretly been a seal).
Ollie, a yellow labrador, and Dora, a black labrador, in the sea up to their shoulders. Ollie and Dora in the sea together.
July 30, 2025 at 11:08 AM
aemlai.bsky.social
Ollie is chuffed to bits over her new favourite toy: a big rock.
Ollie, a yellow labrador, stands over a large brown rock, looking pleased with herself. The movement of her tail wagging is evident in the photo.
July 18, 2025 at 8:57 AM
aemlai.bsky.social
Isn't that always the way!! I'll take it out of your hands and spare you the anger in the hope you can use the energy elsewhere - here's a cute pic of my dogs, Ollie and Dora, instead. We're all three of us sending good vibes your way!
A photo of two dogs, a yellow labrador and a black labrador, asleep on the floor. Their heads and noses are resting against each other.
July 7, 2025 at 6:11 PM
aemlai.bsky.social
Dora (biggest baby in the world) is somehow FIVE today!! She has little white hairs on her chin now 😭
A photo of a black labrador sitting, facing the camera, with her tongue showing.
June 28, 2025 at 9:04 AM
aemlai.bsky.social
Little in life better than dogs in the sunshine* tbh

*Heavily restricted to avoid overheating!
Two labradors lying in the sunshine on a grassy lawn. Dora, a black lab, is rolling around on her back with her mouth wide open. Ollie, a dark yellow lab with a fantastic white ruff, is lying normally and sniffing the air in front of her.
June 25, 2025 at 5:13 PM
aemlai.bsky.social
June is turning out to be a real writing month!! Absolutely delighted that a little piece of flash fiction I wrote about my dog Ollie will be appearing in Issue 16 of the wonderful @wishbonewords.bsky.social later this year!
A screenshot from an email, reading: Hi Amelia, Thank you for sharing your writing with us. We are delighted to accept your piece "Vigilance" for Issue 16 of Wishbone Words Magazine, publishing in November of this year. Congratulations and welcome to the Wishbone family. We are so excited to publish your work. A yellow labrador, Ollie, on a beach on an overcast evening. She's up to her ankles in the sea and has her head down as she sniffs the water.
June 23, 2025 at 5:27 PM
aemlai.bsky.social
An immense joy to have been shortlisted for the Emerging Authors Showcase at @brightbookfest.bsky.social - to read from my novel in front of some real literary legends, to get to know these brilliant writers and their work, to have been welcomed so warmly at Afrori Books!!
A screenshot from Brighton Book Festival's Instagram, with the caption 'Writers' Day' and showing me and five other writers standing in front of bookshelves.
June 20, 2025 at 2:56 PM
aemlai.bsky.social
There's currently a gorgeous exhibition of Victor Hugo's artwork on at @royalacademy.bsky.social - if you're in the vicinity of London before the end of June, don't miss it!!
An ink painting of a spider in a frame on a gallery wall. In landscape, the outside of the painting depicts crumbling brown masonry, across which stretches a very fine-lined spider's web. The black spider sits in the centre of the web, facing away from the viewer. In the top left corner, there is a wash of pale blue sky. A portrait ink painting of an octopus in a frame on a gallery wall. The octopus's head if in the centre of the painting, looking toward the viewer, and its tentacles stretch out all around it to the edges of the painting. The ink wash background varies from a very dark brown/black in the bottom left, where it's almost indistinguishable from the tentacles, to a pale cream brown across the rest of the painting. The tentacles have a dynamic, flowing quality to them, as they curl around the octopus. A portrait painting in ink, framed on a gallery wall. A hand reaches up toward the top of the painting, with a white sleeve falling down from the wrist. It stops at the elbow. The background is a brown ink wash and the dark, detailed lines of the hand and arm stand out against it. At the bottom of the painting, the words LE RÉVE are written. A large black portrait painting in ink, framed in a dark brown wooden frame on a gallery wall. The painting depicts a lighthouse. The stone steps up to the lighthouse are crumbling and merge with clouds at the top. The light at the top if a very bright white against the dark ink wash background.
June 9, 2025 at 10:58 AM
aemlai.bsky.social
A screenshot of black text on a white background. The text reads: neither Enjolras nor Marius desires the other. Accordingly, Marius is fixated on Cosette throughout the insurrection and Enjolras is focused on the uprising itself. One of the few times Enjolras deviates from this single-minded dedication to revolution is when he interacts with Grantaire during "Drink With Me", which speaks to the significance of their relationship and this shared moment. "Drink With Me" takes place during a lull in action on the barricade, as the insurrectionists settle down to sleep. Grantaire sits among other students, while Enjolras is on the barricade. The song begins with the students reminiscing about life prior to the uprising, toasting to their friendships, as well as 'pretty girls who went to our heads' and 'witty girls who went to our beds'. Grantaire's verse, however, deviates from heterosexual romance, and the chorus, sung by the rest of the ensemble, picks up without him. During Grantaire's verse, Enjolras is choreographed to come down from the barricade and interact with Grantaire, but how they respond to each other varies between casts. During the ensemble chorus, the other students mill about and
June 6, 2025 at 8:06 PM
aemlai.bsky.social
A screenshot of black text on a white background. The text reads: actions. Thus, queer intimacy and devotion transform their death scene from marking the ultimate failure of the insurrection to a moment of triumph for them both. This redemptive, heroic narrative of courageous queer love is especially poigant when considering how love between men was characterised as cowardly and lacking in personal honour in the latter half of the nineteenth century. As a result, this scene - specifically the line, 'Permets-tu?', with its informal 'tu', rather than the formal 'vous' - resonates in profound ways with fans. It was overwhelmingly cited as a favourite scene in the surveys:
June 6, 2025 at 8:06 PM
aemlai.bsky.social
A screenshot of black text on a white background. The text reads: can' (Grossman, Figuring Transcendence 319). With knowledge of these early drafts, Enjolras and Grantaire's death scene becomes a site of loud silence comparable to those in which Valjean is situated. Reading Hugo's work - especially the silences - in this particular way uncovers depths of same-sex intimacy that themselves had wider ties to love and transcendence in Hugo's work. As I discuss in more detail later in this chapter, this scene as a whole is a continuation of Enjolras's speeches on the barricade, hinting at the futurity he hopes for, the immortality of the ancient figures to whom they are compared, and the way the insurrection is a beginning as well as an ending.
June 6, 2025 at 8:06 PM
aemlai.bsky.social
A screenshot of black text on a white background. The text reads: certain. Only one element of the character he was remains: his devotion to Enjolras. Even in the midst of his radical transfiguration, Grantaire turns 'avec douceur' to Enjolras to ask, 'Permets-tu?' (Hugo, Les Misérables 1675). His tenderness toward Enjolras holds, suggesting it was always an admirable quality for Grantaire to possess, as it remains where all the flaws Enjolras disdained him for, which have prevented him from participating in the insurrection thus far, have vanished. Everything about their relationship set up in their introductory descriptions is realised in this scene and, unlike Javert, Grantaire is able to reconcile the struggle he undergoes as a result of his internal conflict. He joins Valjean among the characters in Les Misérables transfigured by love.
June 6, 2025 at 8:06 PM
aemlai.bsky.social
A screenshot of black text on a white background. The text reads: absolute as Grantaire suddenly is himself. The statement that follows - 'Grantaire s'était levé' (Hugo, Les Misérables 1675) - is as short and clear as Grantaire's words, contrasting the lengthy and rambling nature of his earlier drunken speeches (e.g., Hugo, Les Misérables 1470-1474). Nothing weak, deformed, or dislocated about Grantaire remains; everything is sharply and cleanly delineated, and firm and strong because of it. Even the way he crosses the room to stand in front of the National Guards' guns, beside Enjolras, is 'd'un pas ferme' (Hugo Les Misérables 1675). Though Grantaire has been absent from the events of the insurrection thus far, they literally become part of him now as he redeems himself: 'l'immense lueur de tout le combat qu'il avait manqué, et dont il n'avait pas été, apparut dans le regard éclatant de l'ivrogne transfiguré' (Hugo, Les Misérables 1675). He even takes on some of Enjolras's radiance, coming to possess the
June 6, 2025 at 8:06 PM
aemlai.bsky.social
A screenshot of black text on a white background. The text reads: Hupperts 31; Neill 141, 157, 174; Robb, Strangers 144; Wilper 74; Woods 21). On the surface, these codes emphasise Enjolras's loyalty to his fellow insurrectionists and his revolutionary ideals. On another level, homoerotic subtext is present due to the nature of the relationships these figures had with other men, and among Spartan warriors, who believed that 'only a lover will sacrifice his life for someone else' (Woods 21), which guaranteed their 'military efficiency' (Crompton 536). Not only do these references entail love for another man, they exalt the same-sex desire and intimacy and sacrifice involved, as many references to antiquity in literature of the period did. The references comparing Enjolras to Antinous and Apollo work in the same way. Like Artistogeiton and Harmodius, Antinous's and Apollo's romantic relationships with other men (Hadrian and Hyacinthus, respectively) have been extensively documents (Aldrich 31; Crompton 107-108; Davidson 465; Fernandez 41; Grimal 47; Hupperts 50-51; Woods 4). On the surface, these references thus highlight Enjolras's beauty and, underneath, the importance and intimacy of his relationship with Grantaire. Both references involve tragic deaths, but simultaneously the transcendene of death; Antinous lives on through the legacy created
June 6, 2025 at 8:06 PM
aemlai.bsky.social
A screenshot of black text on a white background. The text reads: context with the rest of their interactions in the novel. Their death scene has thematic significance in the context of the novel but also more widely; it is emblematic of the ideas about love, transfiguration, transcendence, redemption, and self-sacrifice explored not just throughout Les Misérables, but across Hugo's entire oeuvre. Intimacy and devotion transform their death scene from marking the ultimate failure of the insurrection into a moment of queer triumph. Further, in this scene and in Enjolras's speeches on the barricade, death signifies queer utopian futurity.
June 6, 2025 at 8:06 PM
aemlai.bsky.social
A belated Barricade Day! Snippets of June 5-6 in my thesis on #LesMis - a little thread.

hdl.handle.net/10779/uos.24...
A screenshot of black text on a white background. The text reads: Enjolras and Grantaire are not introduced until past the halfway point of Les Misérables and feature in relatively few of the novel's scenes, but they appear prominently in the chapters representing the 1832 June insurrection, which is considered by many to be the centrepiece of the entire novel (Bellos, The Novel of thh Century 41; McPhee 124; Robb, The Discovery of France 255). Enjolras and Grantaire's entire narrative unfolding in this section of the novel belies the apparently peripheral role their relationship plays, in addition to situating it within a permissible context for the depiction of same-sex desire and intimacy - changing social boundaries. Despite this significance and the substantial fanwork it has inspired, Enjolras and Grantaire's relationship has been overlooked in French and English scholarship. When they are discussed, Enjolras is
June 6, 2025 at 8:06 PM
aemlai.bsky.social
Priscilla's first break-in of the year - eventually successful, but only due to the implementation of a new swivel technique to overcome the inevital leg-flail-tip-needed moment. Much hissing involved.
A partially open patio door; on the inside, Dora, a black labrador, watches as a tortoise looks in with intent from the outside.
May 10, 2025 at 9:04 AM
aemlai.bsky.social
It wouldn't be true to say I've finished the first draft of my novel, but it does feel like the second draft is very much in play now too.
A small section of a stack of white paper with some typed words visible. The border of the top page is covered in handwritten annotations, including a big question mark and the phrases "GRIM/GUIDE, HE HELPS" and "HIS GHOST CAN THEN RISE UP".
May 7, 2025 at 6:14 PM
aemlai.bsky.social
First post has to be Dora's ecstasies.
February 27, 2025 at 12:57 PM