All theories are canon.

Did they? I recall one, maybe two people adopt the Sig Flag, and I don't really recall any discussion on it other than a few people putting forward the idea right after Act 7 came out. I'm fairly sure I've heard nary a peep from its supporters ever since the Epilogue was announced which, as you say, more or less debunked the idea for the simple reason of it being more story.

I forget how much traction it had/has here, but it was one of the bigger theories, yeah. Most of the ending theories on Tumblr were some flavor of it or another, and there were quite a few long and involved posts about it, to the point where it almost seemed like the de-facto fandom interpretation. Maybe it's just confirmation bias on my part, though.

I guess that qualifies as a theory of sorts. But it's not surprising that a theory that was originated and discussed elsewhere wouldn't get such a huge standing here. Also, whether that's supposed to be a joke or not, it's still pretty rude.

As I recall, back in those dark days, everyone was scrambling to find a theory that explained things satisfactory to their views. For me, no one theory quite did it for me, but I took bits and pieces of people's theories, the ones that made sense to me or that made me think in ways I hadn't before, and forming my own opinion. I know the "escape" theme helped me cope with the rather sudden ending. Not so much the literal escape (and possible destruction) of paradox space, but the metaphorical outpacing of the story for thematic reasons. I'm a lot shakier on that now, but that's okay because the story as I was made to accept it back then has also changed, but I still think there is something to that line of thinking. While we've seen more details about what happened to them than I thought we would, it's still somewhat ambiguous and abridged, skipping ahead four years far faster than the three year "time skip" we got in Act 6.

Lately I've also been likening it to ties to maturity and adulthood. Obviously the story is about a bunch of KIDS and their adventure as they all grow up together, so it makes sense for the story to leave them behind as they become adults. There's even a bit of fringe territory as they grow older than 16. Obviously that's not quite adulthood, but it's not quite childhood either.

Kind of happy about that myself. There was basically nothing that supported it, but I saw a fair amount of people (outside here) latch onto it like a lifeline. It's one thing to believe whole-heartedly in a theory that has some support, but....

In any case, I knew something was going to come to debunk theories like that and the surety that some people seemed to have that Homestuck was all but well and truly over, but it's been annoying waiting for it.

Pardon?

If this was the first time Homestuck switched up its format/medium, you'd have a point. But Hussie has already well established a tendency to mess with the format/medium, so doing so again here is really just par for the course and doesn't mean anything to us. Can you recall a single person saying "Wow, I can't believe Hussie would use Snapchat to tell a story"? I can't, because it's practically normal at this point.

Yeah, there's a bit of significance there. I think it was blaperile (?) who pointed out that it's the kids choosing what parts of the story are being told now, rather than an omniscient, controlling narrator.

However, what I was getting at is the fact that the kids are still in paradox space, and thus still in danger from lord english. The method of storytelling might have changed, but it's still the same story.

But this makes no sense, because it is extremely unlikely there is anywhere they could go English couldn't find a way to follow if he really wanted. What makes them safe isn't going somewhere he can't follow, but somewhere he won't. Like, I always thought it was weird Condesce's role as his servant was to go to the places "he couldn't reach," since we know there are plenty of ways he could have easily, and presumably lent some of those ways to her. The fact that what we see her doing next is hanging around Earth and interacting with the kids who will create his universe tells me he doesn't want to directly interfere with his creators, for whatever reason, so he manipulates them from afar through his agents. Really, being "safe" from him is the least of their worries. There's probably no one safer in creation thanks to him. He wouldn't risk anything preventing his own birth, not even himself.

I was marking both Lord English himself and his minions/influence together as one, yeah. I mean, minions and indirect influence are basically the only way he interacts with universes anyway, from what we've seen.

Anyway, perhaps "danger" was the wrong word there. But they're still under his influence, and tied to Sburb's cycle. And, technically, all he needs is the earth itself. He could wipe out their entire civilization personally, and it would turn out to have been retroactively necessary to clear the earth for his arrival, because that's the sort of thing that happens when you are the undisputed Lord of Time. That they are alive at all is a product of Lord English's questionable mercy.  (I also think it involves John, but that would be kind of a longer tangent)

Finally, there is in fact a place Lord English would be unable to follow them: the blankspace. Lord English manifests in universes via Lil Cal, who is entangled in the fabric of the void and thus able to appear in the dreams of a universe's inhabitants. If the kids were to cut themselves off from that fabric entirely, Lord English would be unable to get to them; no Lil Cal, no Doc Scratch, no Lord English.

-snort- yeah ok good luck with that

True enough. I guess the difference between you and I then is whether one thinks of that as a necessarily bad thing, or something which can be helped.

If you think English couldn't find a way to follow them, you're underestimating him more badly than any character in Homestuck ever has.

John once teleported all of Lowas and every living thing on it into blancspace before. Assuming that place behaves with any linearity or continuity, which I admit is kind of a big ask considering how little we truly know, but IF that is the case then all English would have to do is exploit any single connection to and from this realm, such as the one I just described, at which point he would be able to fully explore this realm at all points in time and space, and find anyone who might have thought they could escape him. Whether he'd be able to get to that particular version of Lowas in the pre-retcon timeline I suppose is another question, and I in fact have even argued in the past that he is unable to interact with doomed timelines. But this is just an example. Should the kids try anything like that again in a non-doomed timeline, it would be child's play for him to stow away with them in such a fashion.

I don't know about that trend. Forgive me for being presumptuous, but it sounds like you're trying to make a point that they should have faced their problems instead of running, even though I think it's pretty clear doing that would have gotten them killed pointlessly. And it's not like running into bigger problems was actually a consequence of those decisions. So I would say finding "non-climactic" solutions to their problems was generally the right/only thing to do when that is what they did. Which is not always the case. I'd say they cleaned their personal session up pretty nicely, defeating all the baddies there before creating the Genesis Frog, which was the end goal from page 1, one could argue. And we've already seen the kids, or I guess rather the creators I should call them now? Will still go and fight Caliborn some day, whether they know it or not. Even though that is only nominally their fight, being guilted into it more than anything by being "responsible" for him being born, even though you could just as easily claim English has manipulated them into doing so.

English has accrued enemies in his own right, and those enemies have taken steps against him. That's what is going on in the furthest ring right now. In fact, I would say that is kind of a trend with villains in Homestuck. When they die, it almost never seems to be at the hands of the actual main characters. The king and queen of the kids session, the would-be final bosses of their game, are killed unceremoniously by Jack, and he is eventually taken down singlehandedly by PM. Doc Scratch died voluntarily by granting LE passage into that universe. Aranea was ultimately opposed and killed by the Condesce. Even B2 Jack was sabotaged by Spades Slick, a character who had little to do with the "main plot", due to his offscreen rivalry with the real LE. Though I admit that's a stretch of an example. The Condesce is the obvious exception to this case, and by all accounts was a better villain than any of the other examples, being a personal and direct enemy to most of the characters who fought her, who antagonized and wronged them on multiple levels and stood the most out of anyone to gain from claiming victory over them.

Actually in a funny way she was probably the most "on the same level" as the kids. A lot of the other villains are either near-mindless monsters who just want to destroy, or have insanely convoluted goals that tie into machinations grander than even the story really wants to delve into I think. But the kids and Condesce were both in kind of the same boat. I think they both just wanted to be free from English's oppressive will and do whatever they wanted. Which in the Condesce's case means resurrecting troll kind and starting a new empire, but still. It almost seems sad now that I think about it that they couldn't have worked together. But that's what makes her the better villain, and why she's one of the only major threats that is dealt with directly and solely by the kids.

You don't need luck when you've got a kid (John) that can hop into any time line, find the person they need and then place them where they're needed. And we know from Collide that God Tier Rogues of Heart did exist in some time lines.

Hell, maybe a ghost would do. Dead God Tier Feferi still had her healing powers.