Okay, being the loyal brony that I am, I decided that I will take a little twist with MLP by adding humans. Before you commence the cringe, it will NOT involve the shit Equestria Girls in any way. I know some people might think that this is a bit of a ripoff of My Little Dashie, but I've actually had ideas for this long before I read it (btw, that fic made me cry, no joke).
Kyle had just returned from a long, exhausting day at work. He was sore from standing for eight hours with only short breaks, and was looking forward to climbing into bed, and sandwiching himself in the sheets. It was always the time he looked forward to most out of his work day. It was a little after eleven o'clock, with Kyle having been scheduled a closing shift, which only further made him tired and ready to collapse under his own weight. The other household members were clearly already asleep.
Pulling off his uniform, Kyle laid down on his bed, staring up at the ceiling, and contemplating his life, much like he always does, having been questioning his very existence ever since he became a teenager.
Eighteen-year-old Kyle Schaeffer was but a lone soul trying to find purpose, as cliché as it sounds, but it really had strong emphasis in his life. He had been raised in this house ever since he was really little, but things have changed drastically over the years, more so than just anyone could ever relate to.
The other two current inhabitants of the house were Ed Richardson, Kyle's stepfather, who was an overweight, hard-tempered workaholic who believed that every day must involve hard work and had a bad drinking habit, and his son, Danny Richardson, a rude, obnoxious teenager who was younger than Kyle, but was nearly twice his size. This was because he was a wrestler, having been training in athletics all his life, and, Kyle assumed, inheriting Ed's genes.
The lifestyle these two forced upon Kyle was absolutely terrible. Ed was always making him do very unorthodox chores. Simple household ones, Kyle could do well and had little problems with, but when it came to things that Ed was more akin to, such as building, renovating, automobile maintenance, and landscaping, he was terrible and poorly-skilled. He tried to explain to Ed that this is not the kind of thing he is good at, but Ed always scoffs him off, saying that he needed to learn how to do it for later in life. This really annoyed Kyle, because whenever he made even a small, easily-fixable mistake, Ed would go off the rail and shout his head off at him.
Overall, highly-advanced household work was definitely something Kyle would set money aside for to give to some professionals, once he was living on his own.
Not only that, but Kyle appeared to be the one who did the most of the regular housework; Ed would often be sprawled on the couch in the living room watching ESPN SportsCenter when he was not working on any projects at the moment, and Danny would be holed up in his room, playing Call of Duty on his XBOX One in his free time from training, always raging nonstop at the other players through his overpriced headphones. Even when they did do regular cleaning, it was always very minor things. Ed seemed to do more major work, while Danny simply enjoyed his leisure, and was always pestering Kyle.
It seemed that Danny got bored and found joy in Kyle's misery, with anything from forcing him off the television or deliberately blocking his path, to outright beating the crap out of him, and it was always an unfair fight because Kyle was quite scrawny compared to Danny.
Every night, Kyle always thought of his real parents... but he never liked to think about what happened to them. However, one of them, he had strong faith, was still around somewhere...
It was because of this that he felt so alone in this world. Nobody could ever understand the problems he was facing. He did not feel like he truly belonged here. He felt like he had been dropped into this world from outer space or something. His life just felt... empty. Without purpose.
When Kyle was going to grade school and upper school, he did have a few friends, but upon graduating, it seemed as if they disappeared off the face of the earth. Making friends was not something that was second-nature to him; even to this day, he has always been a very quiet, shy boy. Not to mention, he did not do as well in school as he believed he could; if he applied himself, it could have happened, but school really bored him, and his lack of connection to the students or teacher did not help in the least. But he managed to pass with an acceptable GPA in the mid-twos. Now, he is in college, having graduated early, taking both physical and online classes full-time, going for a fine art degree.
His artistic ability was something that Kyle really prided himself on. He may not be good with building and repairs, but he was extremely gifted when it came to drawing and painting. He had been heavily inspired after watching some painting lessons by Bob Ross, and after trying it out for himself, found it to be something he really enjoyed and was really good at. His aspiration was to become a professional artist one day. He even had an account on DeviantArt, and has posted several of his paintings and drawings that he created on his tablet, all of which have gotten great feedback.
Kyle truly had an eye for just how beautiful the world is. Whenever he would see anything that was even remotely interesting, he would snap a pic of it on his phone, head home, and paint or draw it to his own interpretation. This allowed him to make even gloomy scenery look very abstract and lively. He could just feel that something such as this would be great for him later in life.
Ed, however, thinks otherwise. He has ordered Kyle to get a real job, and that he will never make a living off of his dreams. This infuriated Kyle, because he wanted to make something of his dreams. This is a different world than what Ed grew up in; the internet has revolutionized just how people can make money. Kyle vowed to himself that, one day, he will start accepting commission requests from people on DeviantArt, requesting prices that are reasonable for the work. However, he will have to hold off on it, since he does not want Ed to get any tax information regarding it.
When it came to his current work... it was something that Kyle really could not care less about.
Kyle worked a part-time job at the local Kroger as a cashier, bagger, janitor, and cart-retriever, depending on what they needed him to do. His coworkers seem like nothing more than acquaintances more so than actual friends, set aside that his managers are quite uptight and stern. He is scheduled entirely at random for any day that he is not in school, and working for minimum wage (a little under nine dollars per hour) was terrible; it just did not feel like it was worth the small amount.
He had been working at this job for well over a year, and Ed made him apply to receive health insurance benefits, which Ed has now made a reason for him to stay at the job, since he does not want to keep paying for Kyle's insurance. This, if anything, made Kyle feel even more under pressure from both the job he was working and Ed.
Plus, the job itself was not very fun (even though the ad on the job site claimed that it was a "fun, fast-paced work environment, operated by a friendly, welcoming staff!" Kyle could not help but scoff at this after experiencing it for real). The customers were very self-centered, lazy, and rude; some of them have been offended by his benign actions, as if seeing them as having hostile intent, and a handful have insisted that he should be fired. Fortunately, the managers have had the decency to agree that such customers are a bit extreme, but it does not make up for the way they work him. When he is working, he has to put up with bullcrap from people and is forced to keep a smile on his face to make them feel welcome.
Forcing a smile was not something that Kyle enjoyed doing. It absolutely killed him inside to be feigning happiness when he was not happy. He could only wonder how long it was before he would snap and go completely insane. Doctors and psychologists say that physically smiling can make a person feel better... but Kyle himself knows that, for him, it's a completely different story.
Working while going to school was very difficult, having to balance assignment due dates with work times, and it did not help that Kyle had a tendency to procrastinate. Adding to the stress was the fact that Ed had volunteered Kyle to mow and edge lawns for the neighbors without his consent, and during winter, to shovel snow from their driveways. The neighbors did pay him for it, but all in all, everything was nearly too much for him to handle. He made it all work, but it left him with little energy for anything else. His real days off, from both school and work, were few and far between. If he was lucky, Ed would be at work for the landscaping company that he works for, giving him a bit of space.
To make himself feel better, Kyle would often spend what little free time he had to visit a secluded area in the woods just outside of his neighborhood; an open patch of grass in the woods with a pond, a gazebo, and the remnants of an old playground. While she was still around, his mother often took him to this place. It was like his own little sanctuary. Whenever he would visit, it always helped him to feel the tiniest bit better, even when he was deep in the blackness of his negative emotions.
Other times, if he did not feel like walking a long ways, and if he had no work to do (typically in the evenings after Ed and Danny were asleep; Kyle was a full-on night owl, since nothing would disturb him in the late hours), he would surf the internet, play video games on his Wii U, or watch My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
This was definitely something that, to this day, Kyle found to be a surprise. Back when G3 My Little Pony was in its prime, Kyle was in elementary school when he saw the commercials for the MLP toy line on television, and thought that it was the stupidest thing ever. If, at the time, he would find that he, like many other male viewers, would come to enjoy the cartoon of the future generation of the series, he probably would have thought he, or the world, was going crazy.
Kyle has admitted to himself, a long time ago, that he is a brony. Closet brony, to be specific, since no one else knows about his liking for the TV show. The show is fairly good, he believes... but it is both a blessing and a curse. It is a bit relieving to see the cheerful ponies and the colorful world, but it's also a bit hard to watch, just knowing that such a great place full of great living beings will not be somewhere that anyone will ever be able to visit. Never has he told anyone about his interest in the show... mainly because it was quite bizarre to confess that you watch a cartoon that, from first-impressions, is intended for young girls.
Aside from his outlandish interests that made him different from many others around him, he also had a major ambition, aside from his artistic sense.
Ever since he became a teenager, the one thing Kyle wanted, more than anything else in the world, was a girlfriend. He was not like a lot of the obnoxious guys that he always saw at his school or in movies; he did not care about sex, or stereotypical hookups. What Kyle wanted was something deeper: true, genuine love for a girl, just as she would return it to him, no matter what could happen.
Sadly, Kyle has never met any girl like this. He has had many crushes over his middle- and high-school years, but they either already had a boyfriend, or simply did not want to date him. He knew that it was possible to win a girl over, even if she was already dating or lacked interest, as he has heard about it from his few friends, but he did not know exactly what he was doing wrong. Plus, most of the girls who have fallen for him were not quite attractive enough for his taste, were fairly brainless, or just not compatible for someone like him, given their particular interests.
It did not help that a major portion of Kyle's former friends had been in at least one relationship, making him feel extremely alienated and like the black sheep in the herd. This has also taken a major toll on his confidence, knowing that he has graduated high school and has been unsuccessful with love, and just knowing that there are many people in this world experiencing such great, genuine, deep love from another, and he couldn't get it no matter what he tried, just made him feel like a total loser.
Kyle did not believe that he was handsome by any standards, but many people (mainly adult women) did claim that he was so. He was tall, a little over six feet, but a bit on the thin side. He had a fairly plain taste in clothing, basic T-shirts with no graphic art, and simple blue or black jeans. He had dark brown hair that somehow always managed to look neat, even if it were messed up, bright green eyes, was always clean-shaven, and had light skin that lacked flaws, save for a few freckles, moles, and scars that were scarce and spaced out quite broadly. Hopefully, he could make decent first-impressions on a girl he is interested in by that alone.
Not to mention, he hoped that maybe, the girl he one day wins over is perhaps a pegasister, the female equivalent of a brony, just to avoid having to hide the fact that he likes MLP: FiM. Being timid as he was, Kyle immensely feared judgment and ridicule, which is why he is not open about being a brony.
This has resulted in him being immensely paranoid around any other human being, because he simply did not understand what was going through their minds... something that he has always had trouble with, ever since he was born. It did not help that he had been diagnosed with a form of Asperger Syndrome. He could not interpret the intention or desires of others, and people in general have been his life's biggest mystery.
...Perhaps that's why Lyra Heartstrings is Kyle's favorite background pony, he assumed; she, just like him, is trying to understand the human race... according to her fanbase, at least. With that being said, Fluttershy was his personal favorite of the Mane Six, all because he could easily relate to her timid nature (He even sometimes sang Fluttershy's song "So Many Wonders" whenever he was out in his little sanctuary in the woods to make himself feel better; yes, he memorized the lyrics, but altered them slightly to be proper for the real world).
But really, Kyle seemed to like Lyra just a little more. Maybe it was because not much is known about background ponies in general, making them, including Lyra, a little mysterious? Kyle did not know, but still it did not bother him.
In any case, he was getting really tired. He pulled off his uniform, pulled himself under his bedsheets, turned off the light, and drifted off to similar, bizarre dreams that would always weird him out upon awakening, but would fade from his memory completely within a day...
Okay, so we've somewhat established a backstory for the protagonist, leaving a few subtle hints about his past.