can living players prototype themselves? aradia prototyped herself, but she was dead at the time. john, meanwhile, is shown to high five the unhatched harlequinsprite without getting prototyped. is he immune to prototyping due to being alive and a sburb player? or was the contact just too brief to let him be prototyped?
Dave was alive when he Prototyped himself into Davesprite, which means you can be alive and prototype yourself. Really, I do headcanon there’s a Timeline that’s doomed because John got Harlequinprototyped from the High Five. People also tend to ignore the fact that Seppucrow pecked Dave’s head and gathered a bunch of items to make a nest without being Prototyped. Some things may be too inert to react with the Kernel without intentional prompting, and anything that’d break the Alpha Timeline isn’t exactly allowed to happen.