Something i always wondered if, how would Ken’s personality be if osamu never died and went dark? I would assume he would grow to be shy and have an inferior complex. If he continues to be neglected I’m favor if his smarter and talented older brother, i can’t imagine that leaves him to feel he can do anything
I think this kind of scenario will depend heavily on the circumstances behind it; the Ichijouji parents were established to be under the impression that "Osamu-chan likes studying", and all it would have taken for the dynamics in the family to change would be if something had happened to snap them out of that mindset. (I wrote it in a bit more detail in this earlier reply to someone else, but anything appropriate could have presumably led to that kind of realization with the right setup; it's just that what happened in canon happened to be a really unfortunate and shocking series of events that served as that kind of wake-up call.)
There's also the "other side of the story" that unreliable-narrator Ken didn't initially realize in 02 episode 23 due to his own one-sided perspective: that Osamu was jealous of Ken for living his life more freely and under less pressure, which is subtly supported in the episode itself as well. Ken being friendless and shutting himself away from making any friends between 2000 and 2002 is thus probably a response to Osamu's death and him pushing himself unreasonably to follow in response (at times like this, I really do wonder what specific role Akiyama Ryou had in Ken's life at the time...), so while Ken might have had somewhat of an inferiority complex, he might have also been able to make friends, have an easygoing life at school, and get some kind of emotional support (especially if he's still meeting Wormmon anyway). It's just that, unfortunately, canon happened, Ken drowned himself in his trauma for over a year and shut everyone out, and, by the time he re-emerged, he had to learn how to heal and make friends from scratch, so the others in the 02 group had to step in because of how bad things had gotten.
