Wrong Premise

Similar to DarthWiki.Warp That Aesop or WMG.Time Lord in premise. The objective here is to take a show - preferably a popular one, so that people stand a chance of guessing it - and find a way to describe it with a completely different premise without changing any of the actual events of the show. Pot-holes to tropes are allowed, but no character names, as those can give the answer away.

This would probably work better as a Just for Fun or Darth Wiki page, which would let multiple premises be posted without losing any, but I thought I'd give it a try here, first.

So here's the first premise (long because the story itself is pretty dang long):

A single father struggles to raise three children in the wake of their mother's death. While each of them deal with the stress in their own way, his son, the eldest of the three, is having the hardest time dealing with it, becoming a delinquent and slowly losing an ongoing struggle against paranoid schizophrenia. Things take a turn for the bizarre when the son's Imaginary Friend enrolls in his high school. Leads to more than one Journey to the Center of the Mind storyline as the son and his friends delve deeper into the hallucinatory world. In order to save his son's sanity, and possibly the lives of everyone in the city, the father begins to act out his son's fantasies in the hope of connecting with him. Anime based on a manga. Both still ongoing. Bleach - Nailed by Phoenixor in one guess.

(Wow, this is actually pretty tough without naming names.)

edited 22nd Oct '10 6:38:13 AM by BlackWolfe

I'm gonna go ahead and say Bleach.

A small band of ragtag guys sent into a situation none of them expected are forced to get over their differences and focus on staying alive as long as possible by whatever means necessary. However, this constant struggle for survival blinds them to the true orchestrater of events, who sits right underneath their nose. A video game with a somewhat surreal style.

Damn, got it in one.

Phoenixor - Left 4 Dead?

Not quite, but on the right track.

I'm thinking the first Resident Evil, but that's a pretty straightforward analysis of it...

Wrong genre. Try something less realistic.

...

Pikmin?

Getting further away. More plausible, but the art style is less than realistic.

Also, calling the Pikmin a "small band" is... um... close? :P

It's single digit small, but only just.

Wow, um... I really have no idea. I want to say Mega Man, but I'm sure the Robot Masters know who's pulling the strings.

Nope. The characters are completely human in this game.

Borderlands? No, too few people... Alien Swarm? No, you still only play as 4 people at once and the art style is fairly standard... Team Fortress 2!

Here's one of my own;

A hundred-year-old half-vampire armed with magical weapons seeks to protect the world from his evil siblings and their henchmen while opposed and aided in equal measure by the daughter of his mentor and her allies. Meanwhile an apparently Ordinary High-School Student (from another timeline...) learns some shocking secrets surrounding the circumstances surrounding her birth and her former classmates attempt to track her down. Further still (but not too far) from these conflicts a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits track down their Cat Girl Team Pet's mentor (and their leader's Love Interest), not knowing she's thrown her lot in with the villains in order to serve an Eldritch Abomination.

Hint, despite my best efforts to make it sound like it; this isn't Soul Reaver or a Slice of Life comedy.

edited 23rd Oct '10 5:57:36 AM by Bisected8

We have our winner! Team Fortress 2 it is!

Hmmm... Blood+?

Fuck it, I'm just going to say Buffy The Vampire Slayer, having never watched that in my entire life.

Nope and nope.

I'll narrow it down and say it's something I'm a fan of...

edited 22nd Oct '10 6:38:44 PM by Bisected8

Persona 3: The Answer?

Nope...and when did I ever indicate I was a fan of the Persona series (not that I have anything against it, I've just never played it).

I've edited it to make it easier.

edited 23rd Oct '10 5:55:31 AM by Bisected8