History Main / FriendsAreChosenFamilyArent

* ''ComicBook/GreenArrow'': oliver Queen, a man with a number of good, loyal friendships, has serious relationship problems with his son Connor Hawke. It's complicated.

* Clea in ''ComicBook/DoctorStrange'' takes this trope to new levels. Well, she is the hero's lover, while her relatives are a DimensionLord and a HumanoidAbomination...
* ''ComicBook/GreenArrow'', a man with a number of good, loyal friendships, has serious relationship problems with his son Connor Hawke. It's complicated.

* 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 ensure they didn't come to his wedding.

* Creator/SimonaAhrnstedt:
** This trope is [[ZigZaggingTrope zig-zagged]] when it comes to Beatrice in ''Literature/{{Overenskommelser}}''. It is {{averted|Trope}} with her cousin Sofia, who is one of her best friends. But when it comes to her uncle Vilhelm and her other cousin Edvard... Well, let's just say that they are evil abusive sociopaths.
** Illiana in "Betvingade" is the WhiteSheep in a BigScrewedUpFamily, so it's no wonder that her relationship with them (except for maybe with her twin brother, who dies at the beginning of the novel) is bad.

* 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 a(n albeit failed) attempt to ensure they didn’t come to his wedding.

* 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 ensure they didn’t come to his wedding.

* In ''Fanfic/BlackbirdArrow'', by the end of the story, Laurel is on good terms with everyone ''except'' her family, including her ex-boyfriend Oliver, who became a full-on RebuiltPedestal after [[spoiler:nearly dying in battle against Ra's al Ghul to rescue her from the League of Assassins]]. Meanwhile, she has disowned her mother Dinah for her ParentalBetrayal[[note]]In the backstory, Dinah traded Laurel to the League of Assassins in exchange for Sara's freedom[[/note]], and her relationships with her sister Sara and father Quentin are strained. Sara because of the part her sister played in the aforementioned ParentalBetrayal, and Quentin because she cannot bring herself to tell her father what really happened to her to cause her disappearance three years ago.

[[folder:FilmAnimated]]

[[folder:Film -- Animated]]

[[Folder:Film -- Animated]]

* ''ComicBook/SupermansPalJimmyOlsen2019'': Played with. Jimmy and his sister, Janie are on reasonably friendly terms. While she gets exasperated by his more chaotic tendencies, she seems to care about him. He also likes her and supports her avant-garde theatrical endeavors to the point of blackmailing [[spoiler: Lex Luthor]] to keep them funded after discovering that [[spoiler: their families are secretly related]]. However, Jimmy and Julian are usually at odds thanks to their wildly conflicting personalities. He has a much warmer relationship with Superman (who isn't even from the same planet, let alone the same family) than with his brother.

* 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: Vanna reunites with a relative on her uncle's side who had been just as hurt by the aforementioned events as she was]].

[[folder:Film]]
* ''Film/CriesAndWhispers'': The terminally ill Agnes is cared for by her two sisters Karin and Maria and her maid of many years Anna. It ends up being Anna who shows the most affection for Agnes, while the sisters are too wrapped up in their grudges and personal dramas to do more than the bare minimum for her. This is shown most clearly in the climax, where the dead Agnes briefly comes back to life to ask her sisters to be with her one last time. They are too disgusted to do so, but Anna unhesitatingly climbs into bed with Agnes and holds her while she goes to the other side.
* Discussed and ultimately averted in ''Film/TequilaSunrise'' in [[spoiler:Carlos']] WhatTheHellHero speech to Mac near the end, after Mac [[spoiler:stops Carlos from killing Joanne]]:
-->'''[[spoiler:Carlos]]''': You son of a bitch! How could you do this? Friendship is the only choice in life you can make that's yours! You can't choose your family - goddamn it, I've had to face that! [[AllMenArePerverts And no man should be judged for whatever direction his dick goes!]] That's like, uh, blaming a compass for pointing north, for Chrissake! Friendship is all we have! '''We chose each other'''! How could you fuck it up? How could you make us look so bad?

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

* ''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.

* Deconstructed with the title character in ''VisualNovel/{{Melody}}'', who has a strained relationship with her stepfather due to their shared angst over the death of Melody’s mother, but a positive one with her aunt. She isn’t really seen as having any conflicts with her friends, but her tutors are a different story. The takeaway is that Melody has positive relationships with people who value her as a person, and give her the best relationship experience.

** 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.]]
** Amber's relationship with her father is ''violently'' negative, to traumatic effect for some of her friends. When [[http://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/03-faz-is-great/squicky/ Joyce describes her as "as good as family",]] she doesn't take it positively, and she even has a comeback when Joyce asks what's wrong with "family" you choose.

* ''Webcomic/GirlGenius:'' Agatha definitely has this dynamic going with the maternal side of her family ''sans'' Theo, the other WhiteSheep. The paternal side is just as bad, but because her missing father and uncle were the last two Heterodynes before her generation, it's not mentioned much. Brother Ulm invokes the "religious" form of the trope [[http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20140314 more or less word for word]] in his intro pages.
* ''Webcomic/GoGetARoomie:'' The normally rather chilled Lillian gets downright neurotic, even paranoid, when her mother unexpectedly visits, while Roomie doesn't even mention her family for quite a long time.

* ''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. [[spoiler:Until the very last online strip in which they appear, anyway -- and a subsequent print bonus strip suggests that their relationship still needs some work]].

[[folder: Fan Works]]

[[folder: Western Animation]]

* ''WesternAnimation/CaptainPlanetAndThePlaneteers'': Despite his tendency to disagree with them, Wheeler has a pretty warm and smooth relationship with the other Planeteers, Gaia, and Captain Planet. His father, an alcoholic who verbally abused him until he ran away from home, is another story.

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.

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 that left the regular disproportionately embittered.

This trope contrasts with ThickerThanWater but is ''not'' the opposite[[note]]In fact, the oft-cited 'blood is thicker than water' quote is sometimes changed to 'The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb'. More info on this down in Real Life[[/note]]. Someone can dislike their family quite intently, but still feel that blood relatives have an inescapable claim to some kind of loyalty, especially if they were {{Formerly Friendly|Family}}. 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.

* ''WesternAnimation/TurningRed'': Early in the movie, Mei is shown to be happy and energetic -- even a bit arrogant -- at school and around her friends. However, around her mother she's more meek and submissive. This conflict becomes much more intense after she starts transforming: confined to her bedroom, with no support from her mother, she can't control the panda at all. But around her friends and their open and loving support, she's able to achieve almost complete control of the panda with very little trouble. She realizes her love for her friends must be stronger than her love of her family for that to be the case.

* Several of the more likable princes of Amber in ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfAmber'' must appear this way to their friends in Shadow. The problem is, they're part of a family of superbeings who've been plotting against each other, sometimes viciously, for ''centuries''; turning paranoid and ruthless, even brutal, when family show up, is a basic survival mechanism for them.

* ''Literature/JeevesAndWooster:'' Bertie Wooster is fundamentally incapable of turning really nasty, and definitely believes that blood is ThickerThanWater, but the appearance of once of his bossy aunts can drive him to, by his standards, desperate measures.

* ''Webcomic/{{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.
* ''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!"]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TurningRed'': Early in the movie, Mei is shown to be a happy, energetic GenkiGirl at school and around her friends, but meek and submissive around her mother. This conflict becomes much more obvious after she starts transforming: confined to her bedroom, with no support from her mother, she can't control the panda at all. But around her friends and their open and loving support, she's able to achieve almost complete control of the panda with very little trouble. She realizes her love for her friends must be stronger than her love of her family for that to be the case.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TurningRed'', initially, Mei is able to keep herself calm by thinking of her friends while thinking of her family does not have the same effect. She realizes her love for her friends must be stronger than her love of her family for that to be the case.

This trope contrasts with ThickerThanWater but is ''not'' the opposite[[note]]In fact, the oft-cited 'blood is thicker than water' quote comes from a longer quote - 'The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb'[[/note]]. Someone can dislike their family quite intently, but still feel that blood relatives have an inescapable claim to some kind of loyalty, especially if they were {{Formerly Friendly|Family}}. 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.

Are they some kind of JekyllAndHyde? Not really. They're just at their best with people they ''choose'' to hang out with; having been forced into close proximity with these other people for years, without being asked, has created ''issues.'' This was probably a FormerlyFriendlyFamily, but that depends on the specifics of their story. The mere fact that they share genes with those other people doesn't remove the problem. Like most real people, they have good and bad personality traits, and their difficult family relationships bring out the bad ones. Unfortunately, while they could simply avoid any social acquaintances who annoyed them this much, nobody can change who they are related to by blood.

Are they some kind of JekyllAndHyde? Not really. They're just at their best with people they ''choose'' to hang out with; having been forced into close proximity with these other people for years, without being asked, has created ''issues.'' The mere fact that they share genes with those other people doesn't remove the problem. Like most real people, they have good and bad personality traits, and their difficult family relationships bring out the bad ones. Unfortunately, while they could simply avoid any social acquaintances who annoyed them this much, nobody can change who they are related to by blood.

This trope contrasts with ThickerThanWater but is ''not'' the opposite[[note]]In fact, the oft-cited 'blood is thicker than water' quote comes from a longer quote - 'The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb'[[/note]]. 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.

* ''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. [[spoiler:Until the very last strip in which they appear, anyway]].

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 look 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 ''LightNovel/AccelWorld'', Haru is close to his friends Taku and Chiyu, and considers the rest of the reborn Nega Nebulus to be his TrueCompanions, but hardly ever sees his mother. Kuroyukihime is in a similar situation, as [[MinorLivingAlone it's revealed early on that she lives by herself]] [[spoiler:as a result of threatening her older sister with a box cutter after said sister manipulated her into killing Red Rider. Her parents kicked her out of the house after the incident was caught on camera, and it's implied that they weren't all that close to her before that]].

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.