the comic went on such long hiatuses people started to make surreal sprite edits during them just to do Something. to the point it became a joke in of itself that people do that during pauses.

i dont think theres anything that can truly kill this fandom, especially given how much other art its inspired that even long long after all this is done people will still be talking about homestuck (also its one of the best examples of webcomic actually using the Web as part of the meduim itself and even if someone doesnt like homestuck i do truly believe it should be read and/or studied if you wish to do something similar)

(but then again webtoons and its ilk kind of killed off most styles of webcomic that dont conform to its format... ah...)