plfanficrecs:

I’m not going to comment on people’s portrayals of Clark (or Brenda). No way am I opening that can of worms again.

From what we see in canon, Clark was clearly acting out of character during the fourth game due to… you know, Descole threatening his family. And this caused him to behave distantly from Luke and keep things from him. By the time Azran Legacy rolls around, the Tritons are depicted as a content family, who place enough trust in their college friend, Layton, to let Luke accompany him. 

But that doesn’t mean the Tritons have to be an absolutely perfect family. Happy family bonding moments are wonderful - Something there’ll never be enough of! - but that doesn’t mean the family has to be completely and utterly devoid of conflict. Clark and Luke do and can have their disagreements. (That’s natural for a teenager and his dad - particularly for one as precocious as Luke.) By all means, show more of Brenda’s personality and give her reasonable flaws - out of all the Tritons she’s the one we see the least of. Maybe after her kidnapping she becomes more cautious or stressed. She’s already implied to be somewhat of a traveller (who collects souvenirs), but maybe she finds it impossible to stay in one place after being confined to a cellar for 6 months. Maybe she buries herself in her work on plate tectonics. That would be very understandable, given what she went through. It’s a problem she could learn to overcome. 

On Clark’s side, maybe he and Luke can talk about why they had to move away. As Luke’s parents didn’t appear during the original trilogy, this is sadly something we never got to see. Luke is shown to be upset by this during Lost Future, but that doesn’t mean he’ll be upset forever.  

Character development isn’t easy, but it does’t have to be a bad thing, as long as it’s handled with care.