How in the ever loving fuck did john Egbert manage to high five his kernel sprite in the beginning of homestuck, even though it was only prototyped once
I’m always kind of amused that, of every single thing in Homestuck, this is the thing that breaks people’s Suspension of Disbelief, and they do not even mention the time Dave’s Seppucrow Kernel pecked him on the head without prototyping him! There’s many answers to this one, so pick the one you like the most!
1) It was too brief of a contact. A High-Five, a Short Pecking, it’s more of a little smack, whereas Davepeta’s creation was a firm Handshake, meaning there’s a degree to which you can touch your Kernelsprite without being prototyped in it.
2) The Alpha Timeline wouldn’t allow for anything other than what needs to be Prototyped to be inserted into the Kernelsprite. Maybe there’s a bunch of Doomed Timelines where John did fuse with his Kernel, and where there’s a Davesprite Pre-Entry, but that’s what they are. Doomed, because they screwed up the Prototyping Process.
3) Davesprite and Nepetasprite are Irreleveant, John and Dave aren’t. This ties in with the previous one, and I don’t mean to be insulting towards Davesprite and Nepetasprite, but at the beginning of the game, we need John and Dave to be Players, and they need a Guide to show them what to do and for things to happen. Davesprite from the Future, too, comes back with some sweet loot to help John and Dave. But at a certain point in the Timeline, these Sprites become kind of obsolete. The Players outlevel them, they have all the knowledge about SBURB they need. They kind of become just kind of a side-character that shows up from time to time, and since the Timeline has no need for them anymore, it’s more lenient with what can be Prototyped and what happens to them.
4) Harlequinsprite shows not wanting to be prototyped with Betty Crocker mix and outright refuses to have it come near, but a surprise like the ashes or Dave and Nepeta just being oblivious about what’s going to happen after shaking hands, makes it seem that a Sprite may outright refuse and not want to prototype with some things, disabling its prototyping properties at certain times.
5) You need to touch the CORE of the Kernelsprite, or any part of a Sprite. Pre-Entry, the Kernel is a ball of flashing light, even with prototyping, it has the general shape of what you tossed in it but it still has the flashing circular core. This may imply that before it becomes a fully formed Sprite, which seems to be able to happen both inside and outside of the game depending on the situation, you can only prototype yourself if you properly touch the centre of the Kernel. But, after becoming a sprite with a body and tail, any part of the body becomes receptive to being Prototyped again. Meaning a Peck or a High-Five as a Kernel can happen, but once you’re a ghosty Sprite anything you touch is a potential Prototype.
6) Hussie simply thought this was such a minor and silly detail it wouldn’t affect the story in the slightest, but everyone in the Fandom latched onto it as if it was the only potential continuity error the story has. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE Homestuck and a lot of things that seem weird can be explained in some manner, but there’s a few quite vague details here and there, and Hussie is human (I think), so, you know, he can make minor mistakes that don’t actually affect the entirety of Homestuck that much, in order to create everyone’s favorite Pumpkin Flavored Child.