POKÉLYSSES TRAINERS:
Delia "Dilly' Dedalus, Ghost type trainer!
(I don't like monotype teams and it would honestly get in the way of my fun and games. So I'm going with at least 3/6 pokémon as the qualifier to be an "X" type trainer.)
Anyways, Delia 'Dilly' Dedalus' Pokémon team comp in extreme detail below the cut. PLEASE read it 😁😊🤧😖😓 PLEASE
Gimmighoul:
Dilly's first appearance in Ulysses (she isn't (technically) in Portrait at all) is going to the auction house to try and get money from her father, being somewhat the breadwinner for her three sisters. This is done mostly via the labor of "searching" or "looking" for money rather than employment. Gimmighoul is Roaming form rather than chest form because 1.) She's broke and 2.) both the Scarlet and Violet pokédex entries specifically use the verb wandering:
and ALL of Dilly's physical appearances, alongside 3/5 of anytime she's even mentioned are in the 10th chapter of Ulysses, Wandering Rocks! The singular coin is also fun, because while she manages to get 1 shilling and 2 pennies from Simon (the father) she spends 1 penny in the chapter to buy a French Primer from a used bookstore (rather than, yknow, food.) Draining the life force is a very common motif on ghost pokémon, but Gimmighoul's is interesting as it is defensive rather than offensive or merely ambient. Gimmighoul takes money, not lifeforce! You only get that ghostly damage-to-spirit when you take money (or deprive of money I will say) from it. I think it hurts the soul of both Simon and Stephen to Not Give or Deprive Dilly of money. Yayyy!!
Elgyem:
You Have To Hear Me Out Here. Every main character in Ulysses alongside every character I like a lot (cough cough. is a mirror to a main character/intellectual in some important way) has a Unova psychic type. Unova psychics seem to just fit the cast unusually well, but more importantly are affiliated with France and Paris. Overarching Ulysses (and honestly a lot of Joyce's works) is the very romantic notion of Paris as this bastion of intellectualism and, in a very big way, freedom. Portrait, the start of the Dedalus family's narrative, ends with Stephen 'escaping' to Paris before being called back on account of his mother's passing- Ulysses beginning shortly after. They all want Paris (hey Madam Bovary...).
Dilly, in a very cute and thus soul-crushing way, admires Stephen and is envious of his intellectual development and travels. The Big Scene for Dillyheads (a club of maybe only me), her run-in with Stephen at the bookstore, begins with both of the Dedalus siblings hiding something behind their backs, both literally and figuratively. For Dilly, this is her admiration/envy/similarity to Stephen- the Chardenal's French Primer she bought with 1 of the 2 pennies she has. Recognizing this ("I told her of Paris" 10:859) and trying to not embarrass her ("Show no suprise. Quite natural" 10:871), Stephen comes to this realization that Dilly is similar to him in a bend towards intellectualism ("Do others see me so?... Shadow of my mind." 10:865). So, she should have the pre-evo of Stephen's Unova Psychic, Beheeyem!
Why Beheeyem and Elgyem? This is mostly going to be based on a reading of Portrait rather than Ulysses. Portrait, in brief, is the bildungsroman for Stephen beginning from his near-infancy and ending as he graduates University and goes to Paris only to quickly return. But the sauce of Portrait is that the prose and structure of the text changes with Stephen's mind. It begins nonsensical with the babbling mind of a young child, and ends nonsensical with the babbling nonsense of a young academic (lol.) He plays largely with (and is fixated on) language and memory. Consult the Beheeyem pokédex entries!
Those Patterns Haven't Been Decoded! This Language stuff makes No Sense! <- Stephen Dedalus core truth. The control of memory is not particularly suited to Stephen doing to others but rather himself, he is caught up in the past (whether his own or History) always. Dilly Also Has This! Both with the obvious learning French and other Insanity that I believe based on a loose and personal reading of the text (I am Convinced that the speaker of the line "Goneboro toboro lookboro atboro aboro houseboro" (P 137) is Dilly speaking akin to the weird wordplay Stephen does in the earlier Portrait chapters).
Tl;dr, Elgyem : Dilly :: Beheeyem : Stephen.
Dwebble:
At 17:146 readers learn that Dilly's real name is Delia!!! YAY!! This is another Joyce name inspired by greek Mythos, specifically the Island of Delos. A brief overview of the Island of Delos:
Mysterious Island that wanders (ping) around the Aegean sea.
Landing spot (ping) of Dedalus after his flight out of imprisonment + Icarus' death.
Birthplace of the siblings (ping) Apollo (ping) and Artemis (ping)
Anchored (ping) into place after this birth by Poseidon (ping), who certainly is not, like, the main antagonist of books 5-12 of The Odyssey
Dwebble's evolution, Crustle, is first and foremost a Big Ol' Wandering Rock. Just like the chapter Wandering Rocks! Just like the wandering Island of Delos! YAY! I chose Dwebble over Crustle because of Dilly's relative youth, especially as the Narrative wants her to serve a motherly/ caretaker role for Stephen when she is his signifigantly younger sister. She's too young for this! The Crustle line over any other Rock pokémon was mostly done because when Stephen is pondering over the ideas of family and home in the Eumaeus chapter he thinks about crabs (16:1143-1146) (also when his mom scares him in Circe there is more crab🦀.) It's also one of the few crab pokémon that aren't water type, which is huge for the Stephen-Dedalus-Is-A-Water-Type-Trainer Community to be, as always, a wandering rock/island in the sea. Yay!
Lampent:
3 (three) out of 5 Dilly moments in Ulysses are either entirely about or contain mentions of Dilly tending fires to care for Stephen. Adding to this is the big sibling scene in Portrait (~pg. 135) which is ambiently coated in a creepy and somber light of the fire they are tending. alone with no parents :3c . The first occurins in Wandering Rocks, Stephen recalling when Dilly's face "glowed as she crouched feeding the fire with broken boots" (10:859) and another in Ithica when he reminces on "others elsewhere in other times who, kneeling on one knee or two, had kindled fires for him." (17:135) The latter scene is also Dilly's final mention, and where Stephen seemingly interjects his own narration to correct himself from calling her Dilly to Delia- her full name- after listing her as the final person whose cared for him. Hm.
This responsibility of Kindling fires and serving others at one's expense (burning your/ your poor family's belongings or aiding a brother who only calls you by your real name in The Final Chapter He Is In) is soooo Litwick coded. See pokédex:
Girl! Watch out! Your Life Force! This litwick, however, I do think has evolved by the events of Ulysses into a Lampent. Specifically, when Mary Dedalus (mother) dies!
The Dilly-tending-fires scene sandwiched between the prev. discussed two is batshit crazy and fittingly in the Circe chapter. Stephen Dedalus, drunk off his ass at 1am having not eaten a full meal in like 3 days is hallucinating his dead mother berating him. and also! telling him to have Dilly boil him rice (15:4202), as she is his caretaker after he abandoned God and lost (killed?) His Mother.
Technicallllly, Litwick evolves to Lampent when given a Dusk Stone. But peep this Lampent pokédex entry:
Am I implying that Litwick evolved into Lampent via the absorption of Mary Dedalus' soul upon her death, symbolically being Dilly burdened with the role of mother/caretaker as she must now negotiate with Simon and care for Stephen? Yes. No further questions.
Dhelmise:
He's Literally Scary. Consult the text:
"She is drowning. Agenbite. save her. Agenbite. All against us. She will drown me with her, eyes and hair. Lank coils of seaweed hair around me, my heart, my soul. Salt green death. We. Agenbite of inwit. Inwit's agenbite. Misery! Misery!" (10:875-880) -Stephen Dedalus thinking about Dilly before bolting like a startled deer.
Oh yeah. Lanks of seaweed hair around you, you say?
Exactly. Adrift in the waves, Dhelmise? Boy do I have a minor character in a Modernist novel for you! (hint: it's dilly. it's wandering rocks and islands and the aegean sea and the odyssey of it all.) It's literally the adrift-ness of the entire Dedalian family wherein anchors are scary and everyone thinks they will drown you :sob:😭 . Should we all kill ourselves? Are you guys seeing this shit?
Real note- Dhelmise being scary is largely in part due to the fear the Dedalian family has of connection to each other and how that can potentially damn them. And they are all affiliated with ghost types somehow. But the only real hopeful moments for Stephen in Ulysses come from his ties to his family (though he hates them and has estranged himself from them and won't move back home even though he's homeless, etc.) The Island of Delos' anchoring is done to honor the siblings born on it, Apollo and Artemis, despite the infidelity and 'wrongness' of their conception. See ☝ section Lunatone for more. (Addendum: I don't think either were conceived by infidelity out of the Mary-Simon marriage, but the Wrongness/ Spectre of infidelity that probably isn't real is a D1 Ulysses thing.) I think the casting off of history/past in family (parents) to embrace the fluid dynamic of siblingisms could save the Dedaluses. But that anchor sure does look scary.
Lunatone:
The Lunatone pick has two appeals: Scary eyes that transfix people in fear, and being a moon for the Artemis/Apollo agenda.
Scary eyes- When meeting Dilly in Wandering Rocks, Stephen comments that "My eyes they say she has." (10:865) While innocent in of itself, this occurs alongside many mentions of Stephen bemoaning the fact that he has his father's eyes and how that sucks+ is scary etc. etc. Lunatone Has Scary Eyes.
Importantly, both Stephen and Simon run away from Dilly with their tails between their legs in Wandering Rocks because they are scared of their familial relations/ obligations. Because they are scared that she has their eyes. Yikes! It's also a floating rock if you even care.
Artemis Agenda- Ugh. I don't even like this. I'm a Stephen Dedalus= Dedalus, Delia Dedalus= Island of Delos girl. But everything is everything else, synchronicity... joycean synchronicity whatever. They are also Apollo (I wonder if Stephen wants to be, like, a poet or artist at any point, maybe as a young man? You guys think this dude knows about Knowledge or Music?) and Artemis (I wonder if Dilly is a young woman maybe traversing in male spaces (auctionhouse, intellectia, her father's/brother's deal) on a hunt maybe wandering or searching for something?) It's just there and I'd be a fool not to look at it. Stephen/Dilly, Apollo/Artemis, Sun/Moon, Solrock/Lunatone. i guess 😒