"What if Tom was never a Controller?"
is an Animorphs Alternate Universe Fic by lorenfangor written in bullet-point format. The plot is Exactly What It Says on the Tin: it explores how the events of the series would be different if Tom was never a controller, spanning from just before the first book all the way to The Diversion.
This ficlet contains examples of:
- Adaptational Angst Downgrade: Since Tom never has to deal with the hell of being an involuntary, he's not suicidally depressed. In turn, Jake's main source of angst is nonexistent. This ultimately leads to Tom saving their parents from being infested, allowing them to escape to the Hork-Bajir valley with the others.
- Badass Normal: At first, Tom helps out the Animorphs by being a sniper using stolen Dracon beams.
- Big Brother Instinct: After watching Temrash die of Kandrona starvation and crawl out of Jake's ear, Tom insists to the Animorphs that he's going to help them fight this war however he can.
- Broken Masquerade: During the events of The Capture, Tom accidentally sees Ax demorph from Jake in the bathroom. Ax knocks Tom out and takes him to an unoccupied house so he, Marco, and Rachel can explain to him that aliens are real and they're fighting in a secret war.
- Decomposite Character: Tom's role in the first book (host of Temrash 114, who tries to lure the Animorphs into the Sharing at the beach party) is given to a random cheerleader.
- Empowered Badass Normal: The Animorphs don't recruit David, but they still get the morphing cube from him, and offer to give Tom the morphing power. He accepts.
- For Want Of A Nail: Tom was at home with a cold on the fateful night when he would've become a controller.
- In Spite of a Nail: Even though Jake's motivation to join the war in canon was to save Tom, which obviously doesn't apply here, the events of the first five books play out mostly the same.
- Noodle Incident: Tom briefly recalls an embarrassing mission where he morphed a stork.
- Older Sidekick: Tom mainly helps out the Animorphs by being a chaperone, despite them all being his little brother's age. After he gets the morphing power during the world leaders' summit, he becomes their leader, but steps down to be support once again after seeing Jake shine on the Iskoort planet.
- Sixth Ranger: After the Animorphs make a mess of retrieving the morphing cube from David's house, Tom tells them it's a bad idea to add a stranger to their team... so they offer to make Tom an Animorph instead.
