History Main / FriendsAreChosenFamilyArent

A character in some work is generally shown positively; they have friends, with whom they are in varying degrees funny, loyal, generous, or just nice. But then, one of their close blood relatives shows up - probably a sibling or parent. And suddenly we see a different side to the character; snappish, or abrasive, or vain, or painfully unhappy, or downright hateful. Their friends may well be puzzled.

FamilyOfChoice avoids this problem by having "family" actually be chosen friends - though once somebody is committed to a FamilyOfChoice, they may feel unable to drop them despite a breakdown in the friendship, bringing this problem back into play.

* ''Series/TheExpanse'': When she goes looking for her deserted son in season 5, Naomi Nagata learns the hard way that she now has more in common with her new crew than with him (or with her ex-partner Marco, but she knew that) — and she has to act on this.

[[quoteright:349:[[Webcomic/DumbingOfAge https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/friendsarechosen_doa.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:349:Becky has got the hang of the trope.]]

This is often PlayedForLaughs in an episodic comedy, when some broadly sympathetic character gets a visit from family and suffers intense temporary stress or turns into a monster for that one episode. In such cases, the problem usually lies with the visiting family member, who is shown to be every bit as bad as the regular character thinks, justifying the negativity; when the visitor leaves, everyone sighs with relief and the ''{{status quo|IsGod}}'' is restored. However, this isn't guaranteed; some or all of the fault may turn out to lie with the regular character, whose bad side is thereby revealed, or who has to learn a lesson or resolve their issues at some point. This may happen when the visitor admits to some past error which left the regular disproportionately embittered.

This trope contrasts with ThickerThanWater, but is ''not'' the opposite. Someone can dislike their family quite intently, but still feel that blood relatives have an inescapable claim to some kind of loyalty. Indeed, blood being ThickerThanWater may be the reason why they still associate with these family members at all, despite all the stress, anger, and danger of looking bad. Inversions of the trope are ''not'' particularly noteworthy; lots of people, in reality and in fiction, are cold and reserved with most others, but show affection to their families.

SiblingRivalry or an OedipusComplex may be the original source of the conflict (depending on the actual relationships involved, of course). People mostly grow out of those sorts of problems, though, or try to avoid looking too bad as a result; this trope can kick in when a good person lets a family conflict turn toxic. AbusiveParents can of course be an excellent reason for not getting on with one's family; merely AmazinglyEmbarrassingParents can also trigger the trope if they don't let up on the habit when their kids leave home. TheGloriousWarOfSisterlyRivalry or a CainAndAbel situation can generate this trope if either or both of the siblings looks nicer when out with friends and not engaged in the conflict. If the problem is a seriously DysfunctionalFamily, an ArchnemesisDad, or an EvilMatriarch, the character may get [[WhiteSheep special credit]] for getting out of that mess. Conversely, a dark version may arise when an AntagonisticOffspring finds allies.

* In ''Manga/BloomIntoYou'', this is suggested to be the case with the main character of the [[ShowWithinAShow in-universe]] SchoolPlay. She's thought of as TheAce at school, being [[AcademicAthlete a star student and talented athlete]]. At home, her younger half-brother thinks of her as an AloofBigSister who is rarely home and distances herself from him, her mother and her stepfather. He bitterly notes that this is probably her "real" personality. The main character's girlfriend adds another dimension to this, as she notes that the main character only shows her vulnerable side around her girlfriend, and in the original ending, the main character "chooses" to be the person her girlfriend remembers her as, since they choose to be together.

** [[spoiler: Erza and Natsu don't have great luck with their relatives (Natsu's brother is the BigBad, while Erza's mother is TheBaroness and her father is guilty of VanHelsingHateCrimes).]] Luckily, they consider the rest of the Fairy Tail guild to be their family, and don't consider their blood relatives to be family members to them.

* ComicBook/WallyWest really doesn't like his parents as they were abusive to him; one of the few blood relatives he does love is his aunt Iris. Wally has done his best to build a FamilyOfChoice since he became a superhero and pretty much disowned his parents to the point he made an (albeit failed) attempt to ensue they didn’t come to his wedding.

** The title character is very good at making friends with all different kinds of people, but his relationship with his only close living relatives, the Dursleys, is very bad. (His parents loved him deeply, but they're dead.) This doesn't reflect badly on him, though; they're shown to abuse and bully him in the early parts of the series, when he's still a child, but he doesn't retaliate (much) even once he becomes aware of his magical powers. And according to WordOfGod, [[spoiler:he and his cousin Dudley, who underwent a HeelFaceTurn after being attacked by a Dementor, do develop a normal cousin relationship as adults.]]
** Sirius Black was the WhiteSheep of his pureblood-supremacist family, and was far closer to his school friends than any of his immediate relatives. By the age of seventeen, he got so sick of his family's rhetoric that he just left and went to live with his best friend.

* ''Series/BetterCallSaul:'' Chuck is a highly respected lawyer with a strict ethical code. At work he is seen as a ReasonableAuthorityFigure. However, when it comes to his brother Jimmy, Chuck can be utterly unreasonable, vengeful, and petty. This is partly due to Chuck resenting Jimmy for being [[ParentalFavoritism The Favorite]], and partly because Jimmy has done some very bad things in the past that Chuck just cannot forgive.

* Akira says this almost verbatim in ''VisualNovel/KatawaShoujo'', during her sister Lilly's route, after Lilly and Hisao officially begin their relationship. The two sisters are fairly close, but their parents left them to fend for themselves in Japan for years, and Lilly had a falling out with her cousin Shizune over disagreements regarding student council work. As such, Lilly describes the group of herself, Hisao and their mutual friend Hanako as being a bit like a family.

** Both Becky [=MacIntyre=] and Joyce Brown are in the process of breaking away from Christian [[TheFundamentalist fundamentalist]] upbringings to more broad-minded world-views, making friends with non-fundamentalist fellow college students in the process, which leads to serious friction with their still-fundamentalist families. Whereas Joyce is on a long, hard path of change, so that her relationship with her family is ''merely'' difficult and complicated, Becky breaks away radically, coming out as lesbian and abandoning creationism -- and her father responds by bringing a shotgun to the college. [[http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/03-the-thing-i-was-before/startreks/ Becky subsequently shows a definite understanding of the trope.]]

* The oft quoted "Blood is thicker than water" has had a modern mutation to "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb"[[note]]The idea that the latter is the original is likely a myth; it can only be traced back a few decades, while the version we're familiar with can be traced back centuries.[[/note]] which carries this sentiment; "blood of the covenant" is said to mean blood shed in battle, meaning the bonds formed with your brothers in combat are stronger than the bonds you have with your natural family.

* In ''Webcomic/{{Shortpacked}}'' (from which ''Dumbing of Age'', above, [[UltimateUniverse draws some of its characters]]), one of Robin's lifelong goals is to live this trope, as her family life growing up wasn't particularly happy. [[http://www.shortpacked.com/index.php?id=1984 It's spelled out here.]]

* ''Franchise/OnePiece:'' It's a running gag that Luffy hardly even ''knows about'' his family, let alone their infamous reputations, while he shows the utmost care for his friends.

* ComicBook/WallyWest really doesn't like his parents as they were abusive to him; one of the few blood relatives he does love is his aunt Iris. Wally has done his best to build a FamilyOfChoice since he became a superhero and pretty much disowned his parents to the point he made an attempt (albeit failed) to ensue they didn’t come to his wedding.

* ComicBook/WallyWest really doesn't like his parents as they were abusive to him; in fact, one of the few blood relatives he does love his his aunt Iris (Rudy's sister). Wally's done his best to build a FamilyOfChoice once he became a superhero and pretty much disowned his parents to the point he made a(n albeit failed) attempt to ensue they don't come to his wedding.

* ComicBook/WallyWest really doesn't like his parents as they were abusive to him; in fact, one of the few blood relatives he does love his his aunt Iris (Rudy's sister). Wally's done his best to build a FamilyOfChoice once he became a superhero and pretty much disowned his parents to the point he made a (albeit failed) attempt to ensue they don't come to his wedding.

* ''Webcomic/GirlGenius:'' Agatha definitely has this dynamic with her maternal side of family ''sans'' Theo, the other WhiteSheep. The paternal side is just as bad, but because her missing father and uncle are the last two Heterodynes before her generation, it's not mentioned much.
** Brother Ulm later uses the religious side of the trope [[http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20140314 word for word]] in his intro pages.

* ''Franchise/OnePiece:'' It's a running gag that Luffy hardly even ''knows about'' his family, let alone their infamous reputations, while he shows the utmost care for his friends.
* ''Manga/FairyTail:'' [[spoiler: Erza and Natsu don't have great luck with their relatives (Natsu's brother is the BigBad, while Erza's mother is TheBaroness and her father is guilty of VanHelsingHateCrimes).]] Luckily, they consider the rest of the Fairy Tail guild to be their family, and don't consider their blood relatives to be family members to them.
** Lucy herself is close to her friends, particularly the rest of her team, but while she had a close relationship with her [[MissingMom late mother]], she ran away from home due to her father. She later makes some progress reconciling with her father, [[spoiler:but he dies before she returns from Sirius Island]].
* In ''Manga/ComicGirls'', Tsubasa, a somewhat tomboyish manga artist who has a passion for drawing shonen manga, happens to come from a highly wealthy and traditional family that disapproves of her pursuits. To say that Tsubasa's personality is incompatible with her family is an understatement, which is why Tsubasa strongly prefers to stay at the dorms with the others.

* In ''Manga/BloomIntoYou'', this is suggested to be the case with the main character of the [[ShowWithinAShow in-universe]] SchoolPlay. She's thought of as TheAce at school, being [[AcademicAthlete a star student and talented athlete]]. At home, her younger half-brother thinks of her as an AloofBigSister who was rarely home, and distanced herself from him, her mother and her stepfather. He bitterly notes that this is probably her "real" personality. The main character's girlfriend adds another dimension to this, as she notes that the main character only showed her vulnerable side around her girlfriend, and in the original ending, the main character "chose" to be the person her girlfriend remembered her as, since they'd chosen to be together.

--> '''Teacher''': Fritzchen, why are you always speaking of our "Soviet brothers"? It's "Soviet friends."
--> '''Fritzchen''': Well, you can pick your friends.

** From most people's point of view, the D'Regs in ''Literature/{{Jingo}}'' are a whole nation that embodies this trope. They are violent, sneaky (but not totally stupid) desert raiders; they have their own idea of honor and rules of conduct, but they pride themselves on being untrustworthy. One of them says that his mother would be horrified if she thought that he trusted her.
* ''Franchise/HarryPotter''

* In ''Manga/BloomIntoYou'', this is suggested to be the case with the main character of the [[ShowWithinAShow in-universe]] SchoolPlay. She's thought of as TheAce at school, being [[AcademicAthlete a star student and talented athlete]], but at home, her younger half-brother thinks of her as an AloofBigSister who was rarely home, and distanced herself from him, her mother and her stepfather, and bitterly notes that this is probably her "real" personality. The main character's girlfriend adds another dimension to this, as she notes that the main character only showed her vulnerable side around her girlfriend, and in the original ending, the main character "chose" to be the person her girlfriend remembered her as, since they'd chosen to be together.

** Some of her friends and colleagues are perhaps a little surprised by Angua's reactions to her family showing up as part of the plot of ''Discworld/TheFifthElephant'', although they get the point soon enough; she's the WhiteSheep in a family of man-eating werewolves.
** From most people's point of view, the D'Regs in ''Discworld/{{Jingo}}'' are a whole nation that embodies this trope. They are violent, sneaky (but not totally stupid) desert raiders; they have their own idea of honor and rules of conduct, but they pride themselves on being untrustworthy. One of them says that his mother would be horrified if she thought that he trusted her.

* In the ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys'' fanfic, ''Fanfic/SomethingAlwaysRemains'', Vanna is very hostile when it comes to the subject of her family, ''especially'' her mother, yet Mike is her best friend, and she gets along well with most of the other characters. This is because [[spoiler: after [[AngstySurvivingTwin her twin sister]] disappeared at Fredbear's, her whole family [[GasLighting gaslit]] her into believing it never happened, and that Vesper was "taken by angels". Her mother then [[ParentalFavoritism held her up to an impossible standard of perfection]] that she could never achieve. Later, she learns ''why'' her family tried to erase Fredbear's from her memory: it was founded by her aunt, who [[The60s married]] a [[DeliberateValuesDissonance black man]], before she [[CruelAndUnusualDeath perished in the Spring Bonnie suit]]. Vesper disappeared shortly after]]. To her credit, [[spoiler: she reunites with a relative on her uncle's side who had been just as hurt by the aforementioned events as she was]].

* In the ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys'' fanfic, ''Fanfic/SomethingAlwaysRemains'', Vanna is very hostile when it comes to the subject of her family, ''especially'' her mother, yet Mike is her best friend, and she gets along well with most of the other characters. This is because [[spoiler: after [[AngstySurvivingTwin her twin sister]] disappeared at Fredbear's, her whole family [[GasLighting gaslit]] her into believing it never happened, and that Vesper was "taken by angels". Her mother then [[ParentalFavoritism held her up to an impossible standard of perfection]] that she could never achieve. Later, she learns ''why'' her family tried to erase Fredbear's from her memory: it was founded by her aunt, who [[The60s married]] a [[DeliberateValuesDissonance black man]], before she perished in the Spring Bonnie suit. Vesper disappeared shortly after]]. To her credit, [[spoiler: she reunites with a relative on her uncle's side who had been just as hurt by the aforementioned events as she was]].

[[quoteright:349:[[Webcomic/DumbingOfAge https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/friendsarechosen_doa.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:349:Becky has got the hang of the trope.]]

* ''Webcomic/StickyDillyBuns:'' Ruby Larose can be abrasive or manipulative with strangers, but that seems mostly to be a defense mechanism; pretty well every other cast member manages to get through that shell and takes a liking to her, while she soon learns to appreciate their friendship. Unfortunately, almost every time she has to deal with her sister Amber (which is often, as they're sharing an apartment and Ruby becomes Amber's PA), her long-standing bitterness (which has a quasi-FreudianExcuse) comes to the surface, and Ruby turns brutally sarcastic and hostile.

* ''Webcomic/DorkTower'': Estella has fallen out with her family, who can't handle the fact that she's gay, but is pleasantly surprised when Gilly takes the fact in her stride. (She presumably doesn't know that Gilly's own brother is gay.) This leads to Gilly taking her home as a guest and adopted family member for Christmas -- and [[http://www.dorktower.com/2018/12/20/so-this-is-christmas-dork-tower-20-12-18/ her conclusion that "This is a time to '''be with with family!''' ... As long as we get to ''choose'' our family!"]]

* ''Franchise/{{Bobbinsverse}}:'' Ryan Beckwith tends to react negatively to his father. This doesn't make him look bad, though, as the mild-mannered Ryan is quite polite about this, and his father is, depending which of the strips you read, at best a feckless tramp, at worst a career criminal who almost dragged the young Ryan into crime. Ryan's mother responds to her husband with outright violence, because she's fiercely protective of her children.

-->'''O'Brien:''' You choose your enemies, you choose your friends, but family? That's in the stars.