Puppet:

"I'm a freak.

My hair is long and black, with one bloody red streak and bangs that hang in my eyes. My skin is pale, and my eyes are a red-violet shade.

I am made - experiment after experiment...a success.

Giovanni tells me I will accomplish many things one day, but I don't know what that is. Ghetsis glares, but too, promises me that I will accomplish something great. Cyrus too, all tell me I will accomplish great things someday. All the other leaders say so, Archie, Maxie, Lysandre, and all the others.

We reside on an old island, a place where the sun never shines, a place where I can practice my powers. They tell me that true, I will be seen as a freak of nature, but what I really am is the representative of a new age.

Not even the Dex Holders will be able to stop me."

Genre: fanfiction

Eve (NaivEevee )'s Review:

Puppet is a long story portraying a young girl by the name of Magenta Exe who is the result of Dark-type DNA and human DNA mashed together and modified in a human form. The entire story essentially follows Magenta as she goes on a long "journey" to find herself while Villains United chases her down and tries to use her for their own evil purpose.

First off, I thought that the synopsis was overall well done. It gives a sneak-peak into the brain-washed mindset of Magenta and conveys a tone that reflects the title nicely. Right off the bat, I was beginning to have a feel for Magenta as powerful and dark character; this was quickly confirmed through an interesting introduction to her creation, her will-manipulating powers, and her weaknesses in the first three chapters. I enjoyed reading Magenta's rebelliousness in using her powers against VU and was feeling almost bad for her when she was punished afterwards.

But upon arriving at the part where she was ordered to journey through six entire regions and collect the eight badges of each region, I was shocked. There definitely did not appear to be a solid and developed reason for this sudden order from VU and so six regions felt extremely unnecessary and unrealistic. What was more bewildering to me was how this huge evil organization of six notorious crime organizations managed to convince not one, not two, but six professors of six regions to give Magenta a PokeDex when, clearly, her only objective was to collect gym badges and not to catch 'em all? Why did they have Magenta do this in the first place? There was no motive at all. And going further into the journey...the buildup to Zena's death lacked detail, and her final passing felt very bland. Furthermore, by the time Magenta reached Johto from battling all five other regions, how do you explain her Pidgey being only a Pidgeotto after defeating forty other gyms? And how did Magenta conquer the gyms her Pokemon (Lucario and Zoroark) would be weak to, say a fighting-type gym?

Then, there were the Dex-holders. Their introduction was, once again, underdeveloped. There was no explanation as to what trainers such as Blue, Yellow, and Green were doing in Johto. And after taking care of Magenta for just one night, all of the Dex-holders become abnormally attached to Magenta. Still, they didn't press questions about her strange appearance even after concluding that it was odd for someone as sickly as Magenta to be in Johto when she was last seen in Kanto. And over the span of just a few days, the Dex-holders do a one-eighty-turn and suddenly act as if they've known Magenta forever and were even willing to sacrifice and devote themselves to protecting her and resolving her life circumstances later in the book. Silver and Blue felt like the same character, and the same went for Crystal and Yellow and Green. Gold was the only one I felt stood out just the slightest bit, but poor Red was left out.

After that, the book dove down to even more confusion. New characters were introduced left and right, some only appearing for one chapter and then forgotten about for the rest of book. The relation of Juve, Mellana, and Medusa popped out for a nonexistent reason, along with the sudden mention of the Dark Flute and Darkrai. Why Medusa was on top of Mt. Silver was also left out. Then there was a clash with the controlled legendary Pokemon (I found the number of how many were on the scene to be highly unrealistic) and Magenta's little siblings were abruptly introduced. Then came the crazy battles, VU's constant and illogical tormenting of Magenta despite knowing that she's a valuable weapon and that she's sickly, the explosions, fires, risky rescues, yet in the end, there were hardly any mentions of injuries. The book finally concluded with the world hailing Magenta's heroic actions. Then Darkrai showed up, transformed Magenta to a healthier, happier form, and then she had kids with Silver despite the two of them having had very, very minimal romantic connections throughout the book.

Overall, the plot of the story was very weak in my opinion. There was no sense of where the story was heading regarding what the antagonists/protagonists were supposed to achieve. Most characters had little to no depth to them and so it was hard to get attached to the storyline. In addition, there was an overwhelmingly large number of characters; sometimes, way too many were introduced at a single time. Necessary explanations and imagery were left out for some of the more important things , which made comprehending the story content difficult. Of course, the numerous time skips and the perspective changes also greatly contributed to this; I recommend the author sticks to one type of perspective, preferably first-person or third-person omniscient. The story does have massive potential in its original idea so I hope that the author will consider taking the time to properly edit obvious grammar mistakes and change the unrealistic elements of the plot.

3/10

Shay (Shayminkid123 )'s Review:

I loved this book.

There was something about it that had me sit down and read this book in about 3 hours. I literally couldn't bring myself to put it down. Of course, your book wasn't perfect. Your epilogue could use some work, and you really had no need to switch the POV as much as you did. But that was all I found wrong with it, my colleagues(look at me sounding all professional) might have found fault somewhere else.

           The Good

The Plot

Although dragged out, it provided me with a great read. I liked the unique concept of the evil organizations coming together and creating a hybrid being they would use to take over the world. I appreciated the use of the third person POV to tell the story. It is by far my favorite way to read, but I find myself struggling to write it out correctly and fluidly. So when a writer can give their readers a piece of each character's thoughts while successfully being able to not confuse readers as to who is thinking, I'm absolutely obliged to give you props. I also found this book rich with emotion; to see this girl who grew up being fed feelings of hate slowly develop a soul, in a sense, was one of the reasons why I was so ready to read on the minute I finished a chapter.

The Diary

At first I felt like this was a useless component. But after thinking over and re-reading the book, I realized the significance it held to save readers from 6 filler chapters of a speed run through each region. I found one slight problem with it, though, and my solution is going to sound weird. I felt like the diary shouldn't have been read like we were looking through Magenta' s eyes as we read it. I felt like comprising it into one separate POV would have been better. So when you made that little break to say that a tear fell on the entry, you could have written:

"(journal entry)"

(Italics)here, a dried tear has fallen, making the ink run slightly

"(rest of journal entry)"

I'm not saying this DEFINITELY should be in your story, it's simply my opinion on a possible improvement.

The Other Experiments

I found the other hybrids really interesting, especially Means and Rise. I had no idea whose side they were on, but when Medusa showed up and their origins and stuffs(lol) were revealed I honestly was taken for a complete loop. I thought they were secret experiments sent to kill Magenta, then I thought they were rogue and had a secret agenda. And then Nova and the others were revealed, and I almost screamed cause I was so happy she had cute shadow babeh siblings :33

________________________

Of course, though, for every positive there is an equal negative somewhere in the universe. Unfortunately for you, these negatives were located in your book.

           The Bad

The Epilogue

I found this epilogue half-done. It's great that Magenta fell in love and had kids but, honestly, it's not what really should have happened. First, there was never any hint of a love interest between Silver and Magenta. And second, towards the end of the book Magenta was becoming a Mary Sue. SHE found the safe house. SHE turned Damon and Lectric good waaaaay too fast. And she's such good friends with Darkrai that he saves her AND decides to let everyone be normal and not have to die so quickly. My point in saying all that was to say this: you let Magenta go. She was a great character with flaws, but she started getting lucky breaks time and time again. The epilogue probably should have been a funeral for Magenta, and since Silver and her were somehow romantically involved, it could have been written in his narrative so we could experience whatever emotion he is feeling.

POV

When you switched POV, (and you didn't do this every single chapter,) you frequently changed it. It's a simple problem that can easily be fixed by simply changing the narrative only when necessary, or simply writing in third person.

This book was a great read for me, honestly the best one I've had in a while. So I thank you. I love your writing style, but, like most authors, you (probably by habit) let your main character fall down the rabbit hole of not being able to do wrong. As stated before, your epilogue wasn't the best, but, of course, time, studying, and experience will help with that. My final score for this book is a 7, according to the GRA review scale.

Blue (Blue___22 )'s Review:

The book Puppet by Beyaliv needs some work done to it.

While the concept, synopsis, and cover were great—the execution was beyond poor. There were many errors that were typical of fanfiction writers.

The first, and one of the more crucial, was the inability of the author to create sympathy with the main character. This must be fixed through a number of measures. The first is to strip the massive amount of unnecessary characters in the book. Choose just one of the other mutant children to focus on, one region of dexholders, and focus on a few less villains and this is an easy fix. The next measure is to make the main character feel more relatable and less dramatic. The third is to make the villains feel more realistic and not just plaster characters, this will be explained more later. The final one is to evaluate death better and to make it feel less like you're preaching the theme, rather that reader is living the theme instead by reading actions that express it.

The second error is a feeling of lack of direction. There were many confusing moments in the book due to the amount of characters, but even more so because of lack of properly using the plot to foreshadow and build on itself. Medusa, for one, was one of the larger issues because she felt like she came out of nowhere and that she was of little significance to the story. At all. She just felt like she was just pasted in and added massive amounts of confusion to the events. The other villains didn't feel like they had a reason to keep Magenta alive either. If she really screwed up that much then they could just put her down like it always felt the book was hinting at. So the combined effect of this felt like the villains were paper and unrelatable because there was really no point. And since the antagonists had no point, there was really no point to the plot because there was relatively little obstacles. In fact, the antagonists overshadow the journey. It really felt like there was no point or direction in the journey because she was just going to gyms without reason. There was also no point to her meeting the Dexholders because she wasn't finding the purposefully.

The third major error is general mistakes fanfiction writers make. The point of view changes were not required and made your writing come across as outright unprofessional. The time skips had the same affect. Write it out and give the readers clues that you're making the changes  from context clues. There was also a lack of research. Blue moons happen approximately every 2.7 years. That's a reason they're so rare. The book also had way too many adverbs. As a point of advice from a lot of reading and research on writing, adverbs are something that make your writing worse. You can choose more descriptive words that immerse the reader more than having to tack those on. A pair of shoes are not blindingly white, they're bleached cream.

Darkrai, I think, deserves its own paragraph. There was a major plot hole there. In terms of Darkrai caring for his kin he could've given advice instead of standing there and watching. Plus if he cared so much why would he let Magenta just stay with the villains? If he cared so much why did he not appear more? I feel like there was so much more here that could've been done but was just left sitting.

Also, about Silver. There should've been more bonding between him and Magenta that we as the readers saw. The epilogue was abrupt when you take into context their relationship in the book.

There was a lot of potential in this book, but it wasn't honed. I was interested in it from how it began, but the expectations that I had built up as a reader were demolished. That killed the book because it's the deadly sin to a reader. As a writer who has evolved over several years I believe that you can do better.

GRA rating: 3/10 - bad

Kat (Sheare )'s Review:

After an excruciatingly long hunt to find an anti-hero book, Puppet appeared. Its description practically taunted its readers, as if daring them to read it. The alluring image of the cover, the voice of the narrator; all of it combined created an ambiance radiating with darkness, hatred, and basically everything that appeals to me in an anti-hero story.

Then, I opened the book(figuratively, of course) and saw "*3rd Person POV*" staring at me in the face. A couple of lines down, I saw "DNA" used four times within two sentences. Further down, I saw incorrect verbs being used as dialogue tags and apostrophes for quotation marks for dialogue. To make matters worse, first person pronouns were used near the end of the first chapter.

My eyelid twitched and then twitched again. The word "Archis" stared into my very soul—through my soul. I forgot all about this book's compelling premise that promised a story rich with antagonism. All it gave me was a story rich with amateur imagery, careless grammatical errors, poor formatting, and pretty much everything that made me contemplate my very existence.

Puppet was a book about a character named Magenta Exe, referred to occasionally as Project X or just X. She was basically a human-Pokémon hybrid created by the Pokémon world's villain groups. She was bred out of greed, selfishness, and the leaders' lust for world domination.

She managed to get two fully evolved Pokémon by Chapter 4, which is completely for plot convenience. Zena also had a Pidgeot...for plot convenience. The whole "journey of a Dex Holder" thing seemed like a poor excuse to turn the fanfic into an adventure book. The reasoning behind it was sloppy and seemed like a waste of time.

Then, you had the diary entries in the middle of Magenta's journey, which was cringe-worthy. It seemed to be that you were too lazy to write out the journey. But besides that, Magenta completed her journey in the most ridiculous way possible. She collected all of the Kanto badges in 4 days. It was straight up unrealistic.

The characters specifically were atrocious. Magenta had this typical teenager personality that was clearly bred from stereotypes. Her and Zena's relationship seemed so artificial, and their conversations—which they hardly had any of—were short. The fact that she was obedient to the villain group leaders in the beginning was unfitting for her personality. If she possessed that sort of power, I felt like she would have escaped far earlier. She also spoke somehow to her Pokémon.

Basically, she was a mess.

Zena's illness was horribly executed. I don't see how Magenta should be thinking of death when Zena sneezes or coughs. You didn't even do any research into what illness she might have had at all. Zena herself was just used purely for shock value and a meaningless body to throw around.

The Dex Holders were introduced all at once, and there was no effort made to portray the author's interpretation of their personalities. Magenta's obsession over being accepted by the Dex Holders was also sloppy.

The epilogue was just the icing on the cake for how ridiculous this book was. There was a random romantic ending with no development whatsoever. The ending was strictly fanservice, and that just pushed me over the edge.

However, the worst thing was the introduction of Magenta's suicidal depression. First of all, it definitely deserved a warning in the beginning of the book because it may pose a danger to the readership. Sensitive topics like that should be thoroughly researched, and your 'version' of it seemed awful and just thrown in for dramatic effect.

The grammar and format of this book was more than just lacking. The constant switching of perspective—especially third to first—is the gravest of fanfiction sin. It's basically a textbook error of a fanfiction author's inadequate ability to pledge their loyalty to one narrator.

The time skips were also terribly executed. Single 500 word chapters were dedicated to a certain period in Magenta's life. I don't find that adequate enough to get a true image of her upbringing and what it felt like. If I was supposed to pity her, I didn't. I hated the fact you introduced several characters throughout her upbringing and failed to give any sort of personality to them.

If I were to rewrite this entire book, I would give it a complete overhaul format-wise. The book could benefit from a more personal perspective like strictly first-person Magenta, or if I want to elaborate on other characters, maybe rotating third person limited. I would either skip Magenta's upbringing entirely or spend more time on it. It would have also been interesting to show the development of Magenta's personality. She went from being really frail to bitterly sarcastic and almost obsessed with her powers.

The dialogue tags were just as misused as the perspectives. Verbs like "sigh" don't trigger dialogue. You can't sigh or laugh words, so why are they dialogue tags?

And a perfect example of descriptions being used as a dialogue tag:

Magenta looks up, a haze in her small eyes, "I don't feel good."

Then, there's the small things that are seriously annoying when added up. There was constantly using Pokéball and Pokémon without the accent mark. The first letter of different Pokémon were sometimes lowercase. The onomatopoeia that was bolded and isolated was very cheesy.

There were always misspellings of words, even names of characters. It was like the book was hardly looked over a second time.

The cover of this book possessed a vibe matching the description. The only thing I would change about it is the positioning of the title and author's name. Make it bigger and more emphasized.

Overall, Puppet was a book that sets your expectations so high only to disappoint its readership in the very first line. While I appreciated the attempt at an anti-hero, the character was just laughably awful. The plot and the array of unnecessary and useless characters just plunged the book further into darkness—not the kind of darkness that you were wishing to achieve.

2.5/10

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Credits: Article written by d_s_t_e

Reviews by: NaivEevee , Shayminkid123 , Blue___22 , Sheare

Special thanks to beyaliv for giving us permission to do this review! The interview with her will be posted tomorrow.