Questionable Questing

Why was the puppet trying to kill the brother? Jealously?

But it all leads back to the puppet, because that extremist club he joined didn't start out that way. They were your stereotypical hippie band, that specialized in puppets. They were protesting the war on terror, which kept getting more and more extreme escalating from hanging fake puppet bodies in protest towards starting fires in buildings, which is where the brother thinks he killed someone.

And the fall of the group started when the mom sent him that original puppet because he mentioned he had joined on. But through some more convoluted events and some very paranormal stuff. Fighting a tiny puppet doesn't sound that scary but when he's pissing your brother and also summing up the spirit of an imaginary animal you came up with as a kid to attack you...

It eventually gets reveal that a long time ago. When the mother was five. She and her little brother were playing near that same pond, and the mother left to go get treats and in that time the boy drowned. And with that grief the grandmother, who's dead by the time the main story starts, ends up burying her son in the backyard of the house.

Which leads to the puppet?

And all this pain is caused by that ghost wanting someone to pay attention to it, wanting to kill the brother since it was a distraction from the mom and sister paying attention to him in the form of a puppet. Then targeting the son to try and get him away and have the mom all to himself, And ended up killing the parents because the mom was helping her husband deal with some health problems.

The puppet was a toy the dead brother was carrying with him when he drowned.

So the puppet is the mom's brother and her brother ended up killing her and trying to murder his nephew

And is trying to convince his niece to take her mom's place in loving him. Through a mixture of trying to possess her and/or threatening to kill her brother if she doesn't cooperate. Like I said the subtle horror and tension cocktail has been replaced a long time ago with some hallucinogens. lol

But the puppet isn't the dead brother, more of a powerful artifact or avatar he can project himself in. At this point they've destroyed it. But in order to finally set the dead brother to the afterlife they have to dig up the dead body in the backyard and properly bury it.

This sounds like a very creepy sad book I would not like but a good story to read

That actually sums it up pretty good, but I do like scary books so it's right up my alley. I still do think the more subtle stuff was more scary. There was a scene where the lights went out and the brother went into the garage to flip the breakers, and all the while the sister notices some yarn sticking out of the garbage disposal and almost got her hand stuck in it trying to pull out a doll.

Wasn't the brother ghost trying not to kill her thou? And want to hear me talk of BDSM bimbo hypno phone male mc gone mad with power?

The ghost is absolutely nuts and has been bouncing back and forth between kill and replace for a while. But BDSM hypno phone is a classic for a reason, would love to hear your interpretation.

A Wife's Phone has a guy get caught in a fucking stupid BBC plot where his mom and sister and wife and everyone he knows is getting corrupted. He has a mind control phone but you can't really do anything with it to mind control other people.

The plot often invents reasons to stop you doing so and when you can? Its not explored or built up nearly as much as the stupid fucking BBC racist bullcrap. So what if we play with a concept that was in this VN. That what if the only way to save your loved ones from others corrupting them was to mind control and enslave them yourself

So is it a device or a virus, or is it a curse? Or in other words is it something scientific that can be reversed, or something full on supernatural?

Supernatural. A demonic phone virus. Lets say a succubus who wants to create a warlock to help her and there are others. And the only way to fight them is to feed the demon virus

Is there a way to fight it, thus giving some moral dilemma to the protagonist as he tries to balance enslaving them with trying to not erase their personalities? And what was the marriage like beforehand? If it was going down the tubes or the wife was acting like a bit of bitch, it can make the MC sympathetic despite what he's doing and act as a nice way for the succubus to manipulate him.

Nah keep it a good marriage. Really explore the horror potential of mind break and corruption and all this porn shit if you really think about how it changes people. And the one way to fight it is for the person using it to shape the mind control so as to allow more self through