Short Hair
IMHO, there are two things you need to make this work. One, keep the protagonist's motivation in front of your audience, so it doesn't look like he's doing everything for the lulz. Two, give him one trait (or more) that your audience can identify with, besides the get-my-siblings-back thing. Maybe there's a cop following him, and the cop is even more ruthless than the protagonist.
Under World. It rocks!
Ive got 3 plot points through the story which kind of do that... First off, when the eldest brother first discovers his siblings are gone, he thinks it's a kidnapping, and in his agitated state he keeps thinking up more and more nightmarish possibilites of what could have happened to them. I intend to make him act paranoid, even a little crazy, then suddenly snap back to a more cold and calculating mindset.
Secondly, further on in the story, he gets vivid nightmares of one of his brothers(a pegasus) getting his wings forcefully 'clipped' to prevent him from flying off.His paranoia playing up again, this leads him to his first and rather reluctant 'evil' deed, giving a child nightmares so he can use her fear to fuel a 'seeing spell'. (This obviously dark magic becomes a plot point later on) Turns out it was just a nightmare... for him anyways.
Finally, later on when hes already managed to get back his smallest brother, he's forced to watch as his middle brother narrowly fails an escape attempt and is forcefully subdued by... some kind of pony law enforcement I have to make up BUT ANYWAY: This is probably the most pivotal scene because A: Rainbow Dash(one of the mane characters of the show) acts out the 'hero antagonist' role here, anyone would think that a person being chased by law enforcement officials would have done something wrong, so she stops the middle brother from escaping.
B: The eldest brother(villain protagonist here) sees his younger sibling subdued with ropes and syringes right before his eyes: From now on he is not only at odds with the mane six, but he kind of snaps; by now hes already commited 'villanous' acts, but from here on out he starts to enjoy it, and the character im general becomes alot more cruel towards his newfound 'enemies'
Im trying to write a MLP;FIM fanfic where the main character is, as the title suggests, a villain protagonist/anti-villain. Heres a synopsis(without giving any character names though.)
Anti-villain part being because his goal in itself isnt so bad; he just wants to rescue his two smaller siblings when theyre taken in by child services, who by protocol judge that theyre living conditions are unfit for two children and relocate them (this happens on an anonymous tip, while the eldest brother is out)
The reason hes a villain is because of the ruthless way he goes about getting them back... he lies and deceives anypony who he thinks can give him useful information, and isnt afraid to use violence, in practice or 'just' as a threat to anypony standing in his way. He holds back once when his little brother begs him not to harm his assigned caretaker, seeing as she didnt do anything wrong.... so he just decides to scare her(AFTER she bursts into tears and begs for mercy) instead of strangling her until she passes out to make sure they can slip away.
Redeeming features: Doing it all for family (daaaw) love of chocolates, and and one point DOES put off his escape attempt to help save someone stuck under debris (because of ehh... a fire he started)tries to hide the meaner stuff he does and deems 'neccessary' from his siblings.
Plain evil bastard features:keeps up an 'affibly evil' front, even when dangling somepony out a window. Has a habit of enjoying it a bit too much when anything bad happens to his 'enemies'(mainly cops and the mane cast of the show)
sooooo..... sound like a character youd like to read about? Any and all help is appreciated!