Chosen Family

You can't choose your family but you can choose your friends!

Chosen Family is the trope where characters who start out as strangers start their relationship as friends but then grow to the point that their bonds are like family. While these people may have their biological families, these friends can fulfill the role. In some cases, the characters might have something happen to their family, such as being separated or dying. In addition, there are some examples where a family would disown their members for whatever reason. These causes can leave an empty place in a character's life and may even traumatize them. However, they can develop not only a relationship but also as a person. This trope can happen due to many adventures, in the workplace, or just trying to save the world. While many circumstances can lead to this, the one thing for sure is that the bonds made from a Chosen Family cannot be easily broken.

See also Fire-Forged Friends and True Companions.

Examples of Chosen Family include:

Anime and Manga

• One Piece: As pictured above, the Straw Hats are a crew of pirates led by Monkey D. Luffy. Each of them had lost a family member early in life while also carrying a dream they wanted to accomplish. Yet, despite their diverse backgrounds, they come together in an intimate way that they can work as a team in many situations.
• Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba has Tanjiro and Nezuko Kamado, Zenitsu Agatsuma and Inosuke Hashibira. Tanjiro and Nezuko lost their father to illness and their mother plus younger siblings to demons (and Nezuko herself was turned into a demon), Zenitsu's parents are never accounted for, and Inosuke only vaguely remembers that his mother abandoned him with tears in her eyes. Their initial meetings were pretty rough, but as time passes they become VERY tightly knit. After the Final Battle, the four return to the now-rebuilt Kamado family's home and live there together from then on. The now back-to-humanity Nezuko even marries Zenitsu, making him and Tanjiro brothers in law.

Comic Books

• Runaways have the titular group of teenagers realizing their parents are supervillains and running away to oppose their evil lifestyle. They all come together not only as a superhero group but also as a functioning family.
• DC Comics:
  • The Flash Family is a group of superhumans who have connections with the Speed Force that centers around the legacy of The Flash. Some take on this mantle, while others take on their own alter-egos and come together as super-fast superheroes.
  • The Batman family is a group of crimefighters that are taken under the wing of Batman. They defend Gotham City while acting like a family whenever they are in trouble.

Film

• Over the Hedge has a group of different woodland animals that act like a family and even consist of two biological families that are a part of the group(the opossum and porcupine families).
• Lilo & Stitch has Pelekai's family phrase, 'Ohana means family, and family means nobody gets left behind. Or forgotten.' Lilo's trying to forge a bond with the alien experiment, Stitch. The inclusion of Stitch led Jumba and Pleakley to become part of their family.
• The Ice Age franchise starts Manny the Mammoth, Diego the Saber-tooth Tiger, and Sid the Sloth, becoming a 'herd' when they bonded in the first movie. The sequels led to more animals being added to their group that became family after their many adventures.
• Rey at the end of The Rise of Skywalker. Having been mentored by Luke and Leia, she renames herself after them, ensuring the Skywalker legacy lives on while her biological family line, the Palpatines, fall into galactic obscurity.
• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 dives into this aspect of the titular team's relationship. Unlike the Avengers, the Guardians have no one outside of the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits. They bicker and drive each other up the walls all day long. In other words, they're a true family.

Live-Action TV

• The Kamen Rider Club are teenagers from different high school groups to help Gentaro Kisaragi, aka Kamen Rider Fourze, fight the Zodiarts. While each member had some conflict, they joined the group, overcame their hangups, and assisted the Kamen Rider's fight.
• Sherlock Holmes and John Watson in Sherlock. Beautifully summarized in the Grand Finale where, when Mycroft attempts to have John leave because this is a family matter, Sherlock insists that that's why John stays.
• Referenced in the Series 4 finale of the post-2005 Doctor Who show where Sarah Jane Smith notes that the Doctor, despite being the Last of His Kind, has the biggest family in the universe, his loyal companions. All of whom leave him for their mundane lives not ten minutes after she said that. The fact that the Doctor will outlive even his Chosen Family is implied to be a factor in the Tenth Doctor's Sanity Slippage.
• The Matthews eventually become this to Shawn Hunter on Boy Meets World. Chet and Virna Hunter tried to be good parents and make their family work, but Virna ends up leaving again after that second shot, and Chet is well aware of his failings as a father to the point where he encourages Shawn to think of Cory's family as his own.

Video Games

• The Phantom Thieves of Hearts from Persona 5 are a group that rebels against the adults who deceive, hypocrisies, and corrupt society by stealing their hearts. Each member consists of teens who have been wronged by adults throughout their life and awakened to Persona. Most of their peers see each of them as misfits, but they find solace with each other and become great friends.
• God of War: Ragnarök: Kartos and Arteus have created a family through the allies they have made on their journey through the nine realms. They even got Freya to become part of it despite Kartos killing her son.

Western Animation

• In DuckTales (2017), Clan McDuck consists of not only Scrooge McDuck and the Duck Family but also their friends who became a part of their group. Even though duck is in their name, some aren't ducks, such as supernatural creatures, scientists, aliens, robots, etc.
• Luz Noceda becomes part of The Owl House by apprenticing to Eda Clawthorne as witch and living with the little king of Demons, King. Thanks to Luz's influence, Eda and King soften to her and even gain a familial bond. Lilith, Eda's sister, even considers herself to be the aunt of their family. Even King is inspired to legally change his name to King Clawthorne.
  • Vee, a shapeshifting basilisk, took on Luz's identity when she came to the Boiling Isles and was adopted by Camilla Noceda after her identity was revealed. In the season 3 premiere, when Gus, Willow, Hunter, and Amity become stranded in the Human Realm, the witches and Grimwalker become a family over the months. It even made Hunter cry when Luz declared it to him.
• Anne Boonchuy is transported to Amphibia and becomes part of the Plantar family who hosted her. They even adopted her into their family. Marcy even excitedly noted how much she loves the trope of a surrogate family when she reunited with Anne and met the Plantars.
• The Best Friends Squad in She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. By the show's end, Adora has no interest in finding her birth family anymore. She already has a family.
• Superman (1988): The first episode of the Superman Family Album ("The Adoption") has this as a plot point. While several other couples show an interest in adopting the baby Kal-El, he settles the matter by flying over to an open window in the Kent farmhouse and settling in with Martha and Jonathan Kent. The rest is history.
• In Voltron: Legendary Defender, the Paladins and Allura start as a borderline Ragtag Bunch of Misfits and end up becoming this through Character Development.
• The Gaang in Avatar: The Last Airbender. Katara and Sokka have a loving father who's off fighting in the war and their mother was killed years ago, Toph's overprotective parents treated her like a fragile doll to hide from the outside world and led to her running away, and Aang is the sole survivor of a genocide. The four of them grow close and rely on each other throughout the series.
• The Smith Family of Rick and Morty. While they're all genetically related to one another, Rick is from Dimension C-137, Morty is from the Prime Dimension, Beth (and Space Beth) and Summer are from Dimension C-131 and Jerry is from Dimension 5126. Though Rick has occasionally lampshaded that he's not "their" Rick, everyone calls BS on it. They're from different realities, but they are each other's true family.