Web Video / Pirates SMP

"A pirate's life is always free…"

"Hello there. Pull up a stool and let me tell you a tale: one of bravery, one of betrayal, and one of sacrifice. This, here, is the Pirate Isles. The four pirate factions cover the island together: Kites, who thirst for battle; Kestrels, who seek wealth; Herons, who yearn for discovery; and Nightingales, who seek adventure. You're just in time for recruitment day. Pirates from across the seas have sailed their way here to be sorted into these four factions. Unfortunately, this here crowd of misfits is not the center of our story, for a far darker future lies ahead of them, one that has begun to fester under their very feet."

— Narrator

The Pirates SMP was a private, modded Minecraft multiplayer server hosted by POW Creations in collaboration with noName Ideas. It featured several prominent Minecraft YouTubers and streamers, especially from the Rats SMP, the Life SMP, the Outsiders SMP, and other adjacent series.

The year is 1040 in an unspecified calendar system. On the Faction Isles, also known as the Pirate Isles, in the Ecclesiae Sea, there are four pirate factions: the Blood Knight Kites, the materialistic Kestrels, the adventurous and loyal Nightingales, and the discovery-avid and Seeker Archetype Herons.

Our story begins on Recruitment Day, also known as "the Factioning", where newcomers from far and wide are chosen for one of the four factions. In between server events, the pirates can complete quests for money, advancements, and loot, the former of which can be used for purchasing supplies from NPCs. However, danger is afoot, and far darker forces have made their presence known on the Isles, one which may threaten the pirate factions' livelihoods forever. Nevertheless, each of the pirates has their own stories to tell on the high seas.

The Pirates SMP began on July 30th, 2023, and concluded on December 10th, 2023.

Due to the nature of this work, there will be unmarked spoilers:

• Pilot (July 30th): Unmarked
• Chapter 1 (July 30th – September 3rd): Unmarked
• Chapter 2 (September 3rd – October 14th): Partially marked
• Chapters 3–4 (October 14th – December 10th): Marked

Note: Unless otherwise specified, all tropes pertain to the characters, not the content creators that play them.

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The Pirates SMP contains examples of:

A – D

• Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The sewer maze hidden under the Town Center's docks is more than tall enough for an adult to stand in, and is home to all sorts of monsters, from your run-of-the-mill, vanilla hostile mobs to a Nigh-Invulnerable Sewer Gator. They're also dimly lit, with narrow walkways along the sides (albeit the latter may simply be a result of the blocky limitations of Minecraft). Within the maze is the Bounty Hall, home of the Bounty Guild.
• Accents Aren't Hereditary: Despite being brothers and raised together, Scott and Acho are portrayed by their respective content creator counterparts from Scotland and New Zealand, respectively, and both certainly sound the part.
• Adaptation Explanation Extrication: Martyn's YouTube episode adaptation of the series cuts out a handful of plot points without addressing them retrospectively, which makes parts of the series obvious to VOD-watchers but has left some episode-only viewers out of the loop.
  • There is a notable Time Skip between Episodes 12 and 13 (from Day 45 to Day 76, or a month's worth of content in real time). Thus, a few side-plot elements, namely Bek taking Dai as a Companion Cube and passing mentions to the Golden Beard quest's cursed gold, are mentioned in passing without explanation to their context. The episode adaptation also cuts out Shep and Shelby's induction into the Kestrels on Day 52 and skips straight to them being held captive in the amethyst cave together, and never explains who the Sun God is despite their vital importance to Martyn's personal plotline, which can make their appearances come off as Remember the New Guy?.
  • A minor example at the start of his 14th episode, where Martyn renames a fake Sunset Stone to throw Mufasa off the potential trail "the Stone of Radiance" as a decoy without explaining where the name came from. His Day 91 VOD implies that the name is actually derived from one of the Moon God's epithets, but Martyn's conversation with Cael about the SMP's pantheon is cut from the official YouTube adaptation.
• Aerith and Bob:
  • As per MCYT tradition, some members of the server go by their real-life first names, while others go by their Internet nicknames, which can either make feasible given names or ones that would be absolutely absurd — compare names like Olive, Will, and Kyle, to Water or Sausage.
  • For smaller-scale versions, see the entire Denholm family (Aurelia, Hudson, Scott)… and Acho. Or Kuervo and his older brother, Alex.
• Affectionate Gesture to the Head: On Day 42, while not apparent due to the medium in which the story takes place, Owen ruffles Acho's hair for being a "silly billy" who didn't fully listen to what she had to say about her and her parents' respective views on potion use (i.e. the topic being discussed at the moment).
• Altar Diplomacy: Discussed on Day 125, in that Kuervo has no idea what a wedding entails other than someone marrying a prince (or equivalent) to join their kingdoms and doesn't understand what purpose Water would have to have a ceremony-party dedicated to marrying Jeffery.
• Alternative Calendar: Implied. Olive's Exploratory Log states that the series takes place (or at least begins) in the year 1040. However, given the level of technology displayed in the series, it's unlikely for Olive to be using the Gregorian calendar system here… assuming the series is meant to take place in our world or a parallel of it. Scott's epilogue of Day 132 confirms this, giving the then-current year (about a week before the end of the SMP) to be "1042 PG", additionally suggesting that the series took place over the course of around two years, give or take a few months.
• Ambiguous Time Period: While the presence and use of cardboard, cellos, muskets, bayonets, and scurvy treatment by citrus or greens would date this work to the mid-18th to mid-19th century in the real world, there have been jokes about COVID-19, Comic-Con, modern chemical substances like ketamine and pepper spray, and pirate factions being like high school cliques, all of which are decidedly modern concepts.^note High school education, at least in the United States where cliques are stereotypically found, only really took off in the early 20th century. The fashion styles of the characters also look like modern folk dressing in a deliberately "retro" style, especially for those who dress femininely.
• Ancestral Weapon:
  • The Denholm family's iron Royal Rapier has been passed down to Scott from one of his parents prior to the events of the series. However, it also has the downside of being a physical embodiment of the crushingly high expectations his parents have for him. On Day 132, he switches it out for a diamond rapier Acho finds in Kishi and gives him, just before stars passing later the same day.
    Scott: Um… the sword. Right. This is a family heirloom; it's served all the other Herons well, it'll serve me well, I'll definitely– I'm gonna discover so many things, I'm gonna make everyone proud, just like I was… born to do. Just like I was meant to do, 'cause I'm a Heron and that's– it's all I've ever been, and it's all I'm… was ever gonna be.
  • Sausage's uncle Capitán Santana owns a sword that is said to hold the souls of everyone he has killed, and he intends to pass it on to Sausage himself when he's "ready for it". Sausage is led to it on Day 125 by the sword's Whispers, and proceeds to become Brainwashed and Crazy while in possession of the sword until breaking out of it in the finale, and ends up having to give it back to his uncle in his epilogue.
• And the Adventure Continues: With the Ice Walls set to fall after Iris' defeat and death in the finale, most of the surviving cast make plans to sail and explore the lands and seas beyond the Ice Walls. That being said, most of them decide to sail back to the Faction Isles and have one last drink at the tavern with everyone before going their separate ways.
• Animal Theme Naming: All of the pirate factions/guilds are named after birds; Puffy only figures this out after meeting a heron (as in the actual bird) out in the wild. The Odd Name Out is a non-Isles faction named the Sabertooth clan, which is named after a mammal instead.
• Anyone Can Die: The series starts with a Downer Beginning where two POV characters die a Plotline Death, and several other notable NPCs manage to bite the dust before the finale. By the end of the series, barely half of the POV characters are still alive, with many suffering from a Bus Crash and three more POV characters dying on-screen — and one of those on-screen deaths is unrelated to the greater server lore plotline to boot.
• Armies Are Evil: As befitting of the setting, navies are variously portrayed as unsympathetic, from razing entire island villages for no reason other than being the stopping point of a famous pirate (i.e. being willing to hurt civilians and innocents), to employing Child Soldiers and sending off their best men to die pointless deaths to "save resources". At best, they are portrayed to be a restrictive environment which churns out unhappy soldiers and personnel, unable to live their lives freely and to the fullest. Despite two major characters having a military background in canon, both of them are depicted to have only joined due to extenuating circumstances (Trading Bars for Stripes and autocratic childhood indoctrination, respectively), and both have since defected for various reasons.
• Artistic License – Medicine: Possibly. Several characters have been mentioned by their content creator counterparts to have top surgery scars, but how exactly they got mastectomies (presumably unrelated to breast cancer) on the Faction Isles, where they apparently have no doctors, is never discussed.
• Artistic License – Ships: The pirates' starter boats are stated to be sloops. However, actual sloops have only one mast, while the pirates' boats have two masts, with the second mast located behind the ship's wheel. Thus, it is more accurate to refer to the boats as yawls.
• Assassin Outclassin':
  • On Day 9, Bek takes a hit on Acho in the Bounty Hall, only for Acho to chug a golden apple and kill Bek instead. She's too embarrassed by this to try again.
  • On Day 24, Eloise tries to kill Martyn, only for it to backfire on her. After another visit to the Bounty Guild following that incident, Kyle takes a hit on Owen, who hijacks Martyn's nearby boat for a quick escape, pops a totem when she is attacked again, and kills Kyle in return.
  • On Day 125, Martyn crashes Water's wedding to kill her for a bounty, in part due to thinking her husband-to-be is going to turn her into a worm and eat her, only to be cut down at the venue.
• Audience Participation: While many of the stream chats have been canonized from the start, they become crucial in the finale on Day 134 when they are invited to vote for whether the pirates choose to fight against Ivy or Iris in the end, with the total votes tallying up for a final decision. They choose to fight Iris.
• Bar Brawl: On Day 48, Sausage discusses his plan to get everyone wasted at Water and Jeffery's wedding in Ros' castle and start one from the resultant mass intoxication… in order to rob everyone else present. This ultimately doesn't come to pass, in favour of a different type of Wedding Smashers.
• Bayonet Ya: If the pirates choose to use a musket as a weapon, they can attach an iron sword onto it as a bayonet and use it as a mêlée weapon. Of course, the main obstacle to this is the fact the bayonet-sword costs twice as much as the musket in the first place.
• Bears Are Bad News: Grizzly bears are part of the mod-pack and have been known targets of "A Terrible Beast" quests because they have a tendency to crash random people's picnics. Even if they are tamed as mounts, they are still hostile to anyone outside of the tamer's faction and will attack them on sight if they get too close.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Several of the pirates have either decided to join a faction or wanted to join a faction because the faction-members they've met have been friendly and kind to them, when they're new to the Isles and have no idea what to do.
• Big Bad Ensemble: The two main antagonistic forces of the SMP are the Corruption, which consumes the world from island to island and killed Aimsey, and the Church of Iris, who are responsible for Guqqie's disappearance and are later established to be conducting Human Sacrifice to petrify the Corruption. Neither of them are presented to be appealing options to anyone by the halfway point of the series.
• Big Eater: Played for Horror. After taking on the Captain Golden Beard quest, the curse inflicts both Shep and Owen with insatiable hunger to the point their full in-game Hunger bars can drop to zero in mere seconds. Owen's case is alleviated with the use of an automatic feeding upgrade on her backpack with sufficient food stocks to withstand the curse, while Shep's isn't and while he treats it with a Major Injury Underreaction, almost all of his food supplies are depleted over the course of the curse's effects.
• Bittersweet Ending: The series ends with the fall of the Ice Walls and the end of both the Corruption and the Cult, allowing the pirates to truly sail the seas freely. However, there have been a great many casualties, both on- and off-screen, leaving many to have to deal with the grief that comes with losing a loved one.
• Blood Knight: The Kites, who are described to seek out "the thrill of battle" in search of a Worthy Opponent in combat.
• Born Under the Sail: Zig-Zagging Trope. The Faction Isles, being a seafaring culture of dubious legitimacy, theoretically fall under such a category. However, it is the Herons and the Nightingales who play it straightest for being more exploration-oriented factions; the Kites and Kestrels instead share overlap with Proud Warrior Race Guy and Proud Merchant Race, respectively.
• Boss in Mook's Clothing: The Warped Mosco, an insect-like humanoid creature with the health of a Ravager and can deal tremendous amounts of damage both short- and long-distance. It's singled out in the "A Terrible Beast" quests as only beatable in a team and even the questgivers encourage players to abandon the quest due to how difficult it is to defeat it.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: With the mundane part subjective to Deliberate Values Dissonance via the setting. On Day 5, while messing around with Acho's musical backpack, star, Apo, and Kyle (and later Reddoons) start suggesting slam poetry prompts to the NPCs based on the Sun God, pillaging and piracy on the seas, the undead, how Acho can't meet stars family's expectations, words, how much Acho hates Kyle, etc.
• Bus Crash: Most of the pirates who have been inactive since before November are revealed in the finale to have been Killed Offscreen and petrified.
• Captain Colorbeard: "Captain Graybeard", Sausage's uncle, and Captain Golden Beard, the subject of an adventure quest involving a large hoard of cursed treasure. Interestingly, both pirates are Kestrels, and in the former case, Sausage explains that it's just a nickname. On Day 121, Martyn also adopts the moniker "Captain Blondbeard" during his temporary Face–Heel Turn.
• Cast Full of Gay: Most of the POV characters are queer in one way or another, with many being portrayed by queer creators as well. It's prevalent enough for Water to joke about them "unionizing" under "the Gay faction" on Day 115, after a Progress Pride flag is added to the boat decor custom mod.
• Cave Behind the Falls: Many secret rooms on the Isles are hidden by flowing water mechanisms, often under farm water-holes or fountains, and behind several waterfalls.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Of the location variant; on Day 1, during the Factioning, Tubbo goes exploring out at sea and finds a mysterious crypt on an uninhabited island. Later the same day, the pirates are sent out on a quest to investigate that uninhabited island, and both Aimsey and Guqqie are presumed dead from the resultant mission.
  • On Day 131, Acho notes down a set of estimated coordinates to the location of the lost kingdom of Kishi in his seagull dungeon. On Day 132, Scott uses these notes to track down Acho's location.
• Chekhov's Gunman: On Day 118, Ajax Suarez reveals that he had taken on a new wife and new children after founding the Faction Isles, begging the question of what became of his old wife and kids. The finale reveals that those children were Iris and Ivy Suarez, the two overarching antagonists of the series.
• Chekhov's Party: Ros' Slumber Party on Day 132 which she invites her fellow Nightingales — and later other server-members and NPCs — to attend. Not only does her castle get blown up and burnt down after the party is interrupted, but Ros also specifically mentions how Bek, Will, and Acho don't attend the party despite being invited — one of the few indications before the finale that the three are too busy being dead to attend.
• Chekhov's Volcano: The main island of the Faction Isles, i.e. the one inhabited by the four pirate factions, is located on top of a volcano. Martyn finds the L.O.O.T. Shard of the SMP world in the magma chamber on Day 132, and the Sun God's destruction of it causes an eruption.
• Child Soldiers: It's stated that pirates have to be aged 15 and up to be able to join a faction. While most of the cast are ostensibly adults by the time the series takes place — the youngest with a confirmed age being Kuervo at age 19, a handful of characters (usually legacy pirates themselves) either joined up very close to (if not outright at) the lower limit or were straight-up raised into piracy and trained from a young age. Even then, Kuervo himself plays the example straighter than usual, being an established soldier in the Armada at age 16 years before the events of the SMP.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: On Day 106, Apo and Martyn kidnap Cruppy and drag it off to Monkey Island to interrogate it for information… which quickly spirals into dousing it with a lava bucket whenever it doesn't give a satisfactory response to their questions. It's quickly deconstructed in that the kidnapping was witnessed by Graecie, who recruits Kuervo for a rescue mission and the two give a long "The Reason You Suck" Speech to the Cruppy Cleaning Crew over the questionable morality behind their actions.
• Color-Coded Speech: Apo's 7th episode, covering the events of the "In Too Deep" event on Day 36, incorporates Yellow/Purple Contrast by transcribing Ivy's quotes in violet, with any mention of Iris being highlighted in fluorescent yellow, while the Cultist's quotes are also transcribed in fluorescent yellow; all other transcribed quotes are rendered in standard white.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Other than having their pirate faction listed in front of their IGN, each player's IGN is a different colour depending on their faction: Herons are green, Kestrels are golden orange, Kites are red, Nightingales are blue, and NPCs and neutral players are white.
• Commonality Connection: Zig-Zagging Trope.
  • On Day 1, Kuervo and Sausage are quite surprised to find the other speaks Spanish, but it's subverted with them immediately starting a row over them belonging in different factions… in Spanish.
  • Also on Day 1, Apo and Acho bond over having reservations about joining the Nightingales and a shared distaste for being confined by labels. This dynamic and its foundations culminate into Apo making his Friend-or-Idol Decision on Day 128.
  • On Day 107, Kuervo finds out that Jojo is half-Nayan by heritage, but refuses to trust her with his own Nayan past out of paranoia. It becomes a Double Subversion on Day 134, when he decides to tell her about the past that led him to the Faction Isles because he knows she understands the island-state's corruption.
• Crapsaccharine World: Many of the main cast consist of those who sailed to the Faction Isles in search of new opportunities, which is presented as a land of adventure and freedom that's outright egalitarian compared with the rest of the world, and has plentiful resources for everyone to live comfortably. However, the wildlife Olive came to study includes "terrible beasts" that can and will kill you on sight, and despite the fact the Isles are presented as a safe space where violence and thievery isn't allowed, there's still the Bounty Guild to worry about, where everyone's allowed to legally place and take hits on each other for gold. That much is negotiable, given how Death Is Cheap. Then things start rearing their ugly head on Day 1 when a world-eating Corruptive force is seen devouring entire islands fairly close to the Isles, anyone from background to POV characters being captured and used for Human Sacrifice to contain said Corruptive force, and The Reveal on Day 112 has it that the Faction Isles were originally founded as a human cattle farm for a cult leader who's Powered by a Forsaken Child, meaning anyone and everyone who chose to come to the Isles unknowingly made a Deal with the Devil, and that's not counting anyone who was born there. In the end, thankfully, our motley crew manage to unearth enough about the past to make the right decision, bringing an end to both the cult leader and the Corruption.
• Creator In-Joke: The camera watching over the final battle in Martyn's perspective of the finale is numbered "073023", a nod to the release date of the series.
• Cross-Referenced Titles: cc!Will's livestream titles for Days 76 and 77 are "Those We Have Lost" and "Those We Have Found", respectively.
• Crossword Puzzle: The first issue of the "Noisy Parrot" features one in the puzzle section.
• Damsel out of Distress: On Day 76, the available pirates launch a rescue mission for their fellow pirates of the Isles who have been captured by Cultists for the past days and weeks. However, by the time they get there, the captured group have already freed themselves, with Owen secretly gathering "rope" as a way for them to climb up and others using kitchen knives as Improvised Weapons against the Cultist sent to guard them.
• Danger — Thin Ice: The waters surrounding the Ice Wall are established from the get-go to be partially covered by ice and too dangerous for anyone's ships to get through. On Day 128, just after an attempted duel at the Ice Wall and making his Friend-or-Idol Decision, Apo shoots out the ice under himself, by accident or otherwise, causing him to fall into the deep sea and his friend Acho to dive in after him to save him, ultimately leaving Apo in a days-long coma until the start of the finale on Day 134.
• Dark Fantasy: The backstory conflict revolves around a world-eating Corruptive force against a psuedo-religious organization which regularly conducts Human Sacrifice by magickal means; magic itself is generally limited in usage (only as potions or enchanted gear), even the most well-meaning gods have their limitations in where they can be or what they can do, and the little we know about national politics and societal conventions beyond the government-free Island of Misfit Everything Faction Isles seems to run on either tyranny and oppression or Deliberate Values Dissonance. Even our protagonists whose POVs we follow fall into a Morality Kitchen Sink, ranging from decent people to assholes to one guy who runs part-time on Blue-and-Orange Morality due to playing on a completely different field from the rest of the world.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: Fittingly for a series set in a rough equivalent to the 19th century, the backstories of a few of the pirates have them face issues like misogyny and queerphobia; in comparison, the Faction Isles are much more egalitarian and more closely aligned with modern viewers' values. Even despite this, child labour runs rampant in the characters' backstories.
• Dog Food Diet: Subverted. On Day 76, the Cultists can be seen throwing down "bone broth" to the captive pirates, which is dog food in reality. However, the cave-pit they're imprisoned in has a fairly well-stocked kitchen with vegetables and alcohol, and a handful of the kidnapped pirates still have food from their previous adventures and voyages to go around.
• Doing Research: At a few points in the plotline, one or more characters visit the Heron library and scripture banks to hit the books. Notably, on Day 93, pirates from other factions are given a day pass to enter the greater library to look up the location of the Golden Isle in search of treasure, and Owen spends an extended period of time after Day 77 looking up Sandro Caravel's history on Ivy's instructions there, to no avail.
• Downer Beginning: On Day 1, SMP Launch Day, after all the newcomers present choose their factions, everyone is sent off to investigate a deserted island covered in purple goo Corruption, and Aimsey and Guqqie, a pair of Star-Crossed Lovers who happen to be POV characters, are killed in a Plotline Death, with Aimsey being Lured into a Trap by said Corruption and Guqqie Got Volunteered to, unknowingly at the time, serve as a Human Sacrifice.
• Dramatic Irony: On Day 132, Martyn gets so impatient with Apo not reporting back about whether he completed his task to kill Acho yet that he places a bounty on him. Those who have been following along with their storylines would be painfully aware that Apo chose to salvage their friendship over the "bounty" and is too busy being in a coma to respond at the time, and Acho only just died earlier the same day (in real-life time) from unrelated causes.
• Dream Land: Played for Drama; on Day 93 in the Halloween event, two evil wizards banish the available cast into a shared nightmare realm which they have to escape.
• Dressed to Plunder: In the Twitter announcement posters, most of the cast are decked out in various degrees of stereotypical pirate gear, including hats or bandannas, eyepatches, ruffles on shirts, longcoats or vests, buckles and belts, jewelry, and either swords or pistols as weapons.
• The Drunken Sailor: A good chunk of the pirates seem to have substance use issues, especially when it comes to alcohol. Overall, jokes have been made since Day 1 about server lag and technical difficulties being caused by various players being drunk on brewed beverages. Cleo, Red, and Acho seem to be the most vocal about being raging alcoholics, though in the first and latter cases, both are revealed to have traumatic reasons for doing so.
• Dung Fu: Modded primates (and if they can obtain it, players) can throw poop at enemies as an attack; the thrown poop inflicts Nausea on the target for a period of time.
• Dysfunction Junction: The number of POV characters who haven't experienced some sort of traumatic event during (or even before) the SMP can literally be counted on one hand. To check the rundown, we have had kidnappings in the double digits, curses, background prejudice, watching friends and acquaintances die, actually dying, all-round bad parenting, manipulative and/or exploitative bosses… the list goes on. It's quite telling that the most emotionally stable characters on the entire SMP include three kidnappees, a drunkard, and a scientist who hasn't shown up since Day 1, and even among those characters, about half of them have been Killed Off for Real by the finale.

E – L

• Edible Theme Naming: Among the pirates, Mythical J. Sausage is the most obvious one, but if we're going by IGNs and screen-names, OliveSleepy, OwengeJuice (a portmanteau of Owen and 'orange juice'), SoupForEloise, WaterMunch, and technically Roscumber (a portmanteau of Ros and 'cucumber') all fit the bill. When extended to the NPCs, Ros' catfish Pickles, Graecie's llamas Frosting and Grape, Michela's wolf Lemon, and the Herons' capuchin monkeys Cappuccino and Cookie Butter also apply.
• Empire with a Dark Secret: The "Final Wishes" event on Day 112 has this as The Reveal, that the Faction Isles were founded about 1000 years pre-canon as a fostering ground for "free" souls to be used as Human Sacrifices to keep Iris in power, with the front of forming a region free from governmental rule and convention. However, considering the entire Ice Wall was been built around the Ecclesiae Sea before that point, it's suggested that all of Ecclesia, a continent-sized region, was isolated to serve this sinister purpose.
• Ending Memorial Service: Scott's Day 132 (December 8th) livestream, "The Denholm Brothers", has an epilogue taking place a week after the main events of the livestream, where he makes a memorial for his late younger brother, Acho, who died in the climax of the stream, and adopts Dipper as per Acho's Last Request.
• Eternal English: None of the characters have any issues with reading texts written centuries before the start of the SMP.
• Euphemism Buster: At the start of the finale on Day 134, upon breaking the news of Acho's sacrifice to Jojo, Graecie tries to dodge the subject by explaining they "had to stay behind", to which Jojo immediately asks if she means it literally or if it means they're dead. Graecie drops the euphemism after that.
• Evil Versus Evil: The setting establishes an ongoing, thousand-year-old conflict between the world-eating Corruption and the Cultists, who are initially seen as mysterious figures who want to "deal with" the Corruption but are still responsible for Guqqie's disappearance, who are then later confirmed to fuel their petrification of the Corruption with Human Sacrifice and be more malicious than they present themselves to be. As the series introduction suggests, the pirates are quickly caught up between the two sides of the conflict, and those who originally sided against Ivy in the finale only agree to fight Iris with the majority of the group on the condition they'd go after Ivy next.
• Exact Eavesdropping: In the finale, shortly after arriving at Iris' temple in the far north, the pirates overhear the two sisters arguing over how disgusting of a person the other is, revealing hints towards their shared backstory that built and shaped the Faction Isles in the process.
  Martyn: Uh, feel like we've awkwardly wandered into a family dispute.
• Extreme Omnivore:
  • The seagulls will steal any consumable food item from players, including mugs of alcohol. Truth in Television in that seagulls will scavenge alcoholic dregs or byproducts from the brewing process, getting intoxicated as a result.
  • Not even the pirates are immune to this. Among other examples, Scar has licked the Corruption at Sausage's request and claimed it was salty, Acho has once asked if star can eat eggshells, Bek has licked a Relic and said it tasted a bit like sugar and paprika at the same time, and Owen claims to have straight-up eaten a leather-bound book titled "A Brief History of Kestrels".
• Failed a Spot Check: The quest details and instructions, from whether to accept a quest to the coordinates or location one must travel to, are stated in the in-game chat. However, many players keep their chats turned off, partially due to how the NPC conversation functions work, thus frequently resulting in this trope being in play.
• Fallback Marriage Pact: On Day 76, Shelby proposes that if both she and Scott are single after about five or so years, they'll get married for tax benefits, which Scott seems to just roll with. Since Shelby doesn't make it to the end of the series, this never goes anywhere.
• Family Business: Partially overlapping with Born Under the Sail, piracy runs in a handful of families across the Isles, and the main cast of the series include scions from some of those families, who were often born and raised on the Isles.
  • The Denholm family consists of two famous Herons of the previous generation, who raised their two children on the Isles to continue the family tradition. So far, the one who stayed is experiencing anxiety over trying to live up to the family legacy, and the other has jumped ship from the pressure, first to roam the seas by themself, then to another faction when they coincidentally return to the Isles in time for Recruitment Day.
  • Implied for Bek, who claims to have grown up as a Kite on the Faction Isles, so it can be presumed that her parents were affiliated with the Kites in some way.
  • Guqqie was born and raised into the wealthy Kestrel life. Despite this, she didn't know many non-Kestrels as she considered the Isles too dirty for her to go out much.
  • Kyle's family owns armament factories and is affiliated with the business side of the Kestrels rather than the piracy side. Kyle is expected to take on the responsibilities as Chairman for the company after his father's death, but he wants to be known for more than that.
  • Sausage is an interesting variation. While it's unknown how involved his parents were in the world of piracy, his uncle was definitely one and trained him after his parents passed away in… less than fortunate circumstances.
• Fantasy Pantheon: Cael has alluded to the existence of a vast pantheon across the SMP, including the Sun God, the Moon God/Goddess, the God of the Sea(s), the Goddess of the Harvest, the God of Thunder, and possibly a deity of the stars. However, only the Sun God has ever come into relevance to the plotline, though the Moon Deity also makes occasional appearances.
• The Fellowship Has Ended: The SMP ends with the surviving cast planning to go their separate ways: most of the Herons and Shep sail off to explore the regions beyond the Ice Wall, with Scott explicitly doing so to get away from his parents in his late brother's memory, and Shep being at least partially motivated by going somewhere no vengeful Nightingales can easily track him down; Eloise goes home to make her journalistic dreams come true while still keeping in touch with her friends; Sausage goes on a realm-hopping treasure hunt of an adventure with his uncle (and Jellie) using the "Harvester of Souls" sword, though not without returning to Iris' temple to retrieve the petrified and make memorials for them all; Oli, Jojo, and Kuervo go back to their respective homes, with the latter doing so in a rather unconventional way in order to free Naya from further tyranny; Martyn inevitably leaves the Pirates world to return to the datastream; Seapeekay goes on to recruit more Kites, albeit going with Oli to visit Sheffield-on-Sea first; Apo and Graecie make plans to find a way to undo the petrification and bring their friends back; and Kyle and Ros having no confirmed further plans, though Kyle makes some offhand comments about turning Iris' temple into a museum to make bank from entry fees.
• Fetch Quest: One of the many varieties of quests, the "Item Quest", requires players to speak to an NPC and obtain a certain number of an item to give to them, in exchange for gold.
• First-Person Dying Perspective: Bek's death is shown from their perspective — although the cinematic plays in third-person for their capture and flipping off Iris, it briefly switches to their first-person POV for dying before cutting to a third-person POV scene of them in The Nothing After Death.
• Floating Continent: The Revenge Raid on the Cultists on Day 77 take the pirates to a floating island which stays in one place for no longer than a week; the Cultists have been tracking down a Corruptive force called Ivy and made an outpost on the island to capture them, having made sense of the island's movement patterns.
• Floral Theme Naming: The most obvious examples are the main antagonists, Iris and Ivy — which, alongside the alliteration, may be an early hint at them being sisters. To a lesser extent, Miss Snapdragon also counts, and if we're going off of IGNs and screen-names alone, OliveSleepy and WillowMVP apply as well (though the latter doesn't go by it in-character).
• Flooded Future World: Discussed. Martyn theorizes that at some point in the future, the Ice Wall surrounding the Ecclesiae Sea will melt, causing a Giant Wall of Watery Doom that will raise the sea level and destroy entire civilizations.
• Fluffy Tamer: There are a handful of animal species which are both hunted in "A Terrible Beast" quests and tameable by players, which can thus result in this. For instance, Bek and Eloise each have a pet grizzly bear, while Scott has hatched and raised two crocodiles.
• Foil: The Herons and the Nightingales are motivated by discovery and adventure, respectively, which are incredibly similar by nature. However, while the Herons care for the end result and are Legacy Seekers, the Nightingales believe it's the journey that counts and care more for their True Companions. Despite this, the two factions tend to get along well and are considered similarly to cousins.
• Forced to Watch: On Day 77, the pirates who participate in the Revenge Raid are frozen in ice by the Cultists and forced to watch as they petrify Hook, one of the trader NPCs, into a statue in order to turn the Corruption on the island to stone.
• Foreign Queasine: Bek certainly thinks so; after being offered a salmon roll from Owen on Day 1, she instantly spits out the raw fish. Owen chalks it up to class differences.
• Friend or Foe?: After his boat breaks in pursuit of a kidnapping Cultist on Day 75, Acho replaces his original blue boat with a plain one with black sails. This ends up causing confusion on Day 93; when ghost ships start attacking everyone while sailing to the Golden Isle, several people mistaken Acho's boat for a ghost ship and vice versa.
• From Beyond the Fourth Wall: Most of the content creators' stream chats have been canonized in various forms; the creators may converse with them for advice but generally do not accept "stream-sniping" (i.e. using livestreams to gain an advantage over others, usually to gain information):
  • Acho, Shelby, and Tubbo's chats are seagulls, while Apo's are specifically "rat gulls".
  • Bek, Eloise, Martyn, and Olive's chats are rats. For Eloise, it's because they also "deserve the chance to be rats", and the chat moderators are cats because "they keep the rats in check"; Martyn's chat usually reside in his boots.
  • Cleo, Jojo, and Michela's chats are voices in their heads.
  • Like xyr Dream SMP counterpart, Eret's chat are a business of ferrets.
  • Krow/Kuervo's chat are apparently "adoring fans"; it's still unconfirmed how that manifests in-universe.
  • Kyle's chat are a flock of parrots, while Sausage's are a flock of ghost parrots.
  • Oli's chat are a crab named 'Crub', which he found on the shore of the island early on Day 1.
  • Owen's chat are specks of sea salt in the breeze.
  • Ros' chat are the waves.
  • Scott's chat are a flock of magpies.
  • Shep's chat manifest as either sprites similar to those from Spirited Away or tiny sheep called "Sheps" that follow him around.
  • Water's chat consist of either music notes or birds.
  • Will's chat manifest as the skies, usually mentioned as the stars at night or clouds.
• Gentle Gorilla: In the mod-pack, gorillas do not attack unless provoked, can be tamed with bananas, and will defend their affiliated player if they are attacked.
• Ghost Pirate: A handful of undead Dead Beard pirates haunt the Isles and will summon Zombie or Drowned crew to attack on their behalf; when they reach sufficiently low health, they summon a piece of TNT to self-detonate in an attempt to take the player down with them. These undead pirates are sometimes the targets for "A Terrible Beast" quests because of the danger they pose; the quest descriptions explain that each one of them is "an evil pirate lord who fell folly to his explosives one day" and their souls have to be "put to rest".
• Grappling-Hook Gun: The Grappling Squok from the Alex's Mobs mod functions as this, as a crossbow that can shoot out four cephelapod tentacles to attach to another surface or plane. Scott and Jojo are each in possession of one, and both utilize it in the battle on the Faction Isles during the finale to try to save the Enchantress from the Cultist Ohca's murderous rampage, to no avail.
• Great Offscreen War: On Day 112, Sandro Caravel's journals reveal him to have founded the pirate faction of the Firecrests, and the finale has Iris elaborate that the Firecrests have split into further factions following "the Split", but there are no further discussions about this aspect of the history of the Faction Isles. Justified as historical erasure and revisionism play a large role in the greater backstory.
• Grouped for Your Convenience: The four pirate factions are divided by their values and preferred activities in piracy; there also exist "rogue pirates" who do not belong in any faction, whose existence is frowned upon (if not condemned) on the Isles. Played for Drama with the existence a faction of rogues known as the Sabertooth clan, which is mostly comprised of Faction Isles rejects and have plans to destroy Ecclesia in retaliation.
• Halloween Episode: The server event on October 30, 2023 (Day 93) begins with The Night That Never Ends and heavily features themes of nightmares and fears which often relate back to individual player-characters' arcs and backstories.
• Hello, Sailor!: Both yes and no, since the cast runs the whole gamut of the attraction spectra: first, unlike many other examples of this trope, the gender ratio of the SMP is somewhat equal; but then, a significant portion of the cast experiences same-gender attraction and can be found flirting with each other and/or with NPCs of the same gender. On the other hand, two of the pirates are confirmed to be straight and another is confirmed to be aromantic asexual, and a handful of the creators are uncomfortable with their characters being shipped (or labelled) at all, which takes them safely off the board when it comes to relationships.
• Hitman with a Heart: On Day 20, Scott takes a bounty on Ros to get her name off the board, informs her of the situation before making the kill, and repays her 100 gold as compensation, which is fairly moral for a world where Death Is Cheap in most cases. This has since become a Defied Trope as Scott gets temporarily banned from the Bounty Hall for finding such a loophole in the rules.
• Homage Shot: Overlaps with Company Cross References; the scene in a backstory animatic where Kuervo bursts into the Armada commanders' rooms to commit mass Tyrannicide is a shot-reference to another one of Krow's lore animatics from Outsiders SMP, complete with the glowing red eye effects.
• Home by Christmas: On Day 1, Aimsey promises Guqqie that once they get back from the Recruitment Officer's quest to investigate a certain mysterious island, they'll finally go on their first date to someplace nice. They also promise Apo a sparring session. Neither Aimsey nor Guqqie make it home that day.
  cc!Aimsey: (in The Stinger) All I'm gonna say… I guess we didn't get our date.
• Horse of a Different Color: A handful of mobs from the mod-pack can be befriended to become mounts, from tortoises to grizzly bears.
• Hunter of Monsters: The "Monster Hunting" and "A Terrible Beast" questlines require the cast to kill various dangerous mobs to get their gold — the former requires bog-standard vanilla hostile creatures that plague the night, and the latter are for modded beasts known for terrorizing the local townsfolk.
• I'm Cold... So Cold...: Zig-Zagging Trope. One of the trademark effects of being inflicted with the curse on the treasure from the Golden Isle is feeling "the warmth of the Sun and Moon slowly fade (and eventually vanish) from one's skin", which can lead to frostbite and one's surroundings freezing over if left unchecked. However, the curse can also cause one to feel unbearably hot or to experience both temperature extremes, but these potential symptoms are far less common than the cold variant.
• In-Series Nickname:
  • The Warped Mosco mini-boss is rarely called that by anyone who has encountered it; the pirates usually call it "the Moth Man", or if they're in the mood to break the fourth wall, "Buzzwole".
  • The initially inaccessible seas with swampy water are nicknamed "the Poopy Isles" by Martyn and subsequently many of the other pirates, precisely because of the murkiness of the seas there.
• Inevitably Broken Rule:
  • The Bounty Guild's rules include a ban on accepting bounties on one's faction-mates or killing one's target in their faction base. Eret, who initially joined the Herons on arrival, kills Owen in the Herons' tavern on Day 54, thus breaking both aforementioned rules in one swoop.^note The reason? They wanted the money and neglected to read the rulebook before taking the bounty. This results in them being kicked from the faction and joining the Kites.
  • There is an unofficial rule against taking the Sunset Stone from its rightful place, as it is the Sun God's life and power source and eternal night may ensue if it is stolen. On Day 89, Martyn steals it out of dissatisfaction to the Sun God and disbelief that they can protect the Isles from greater threats.
• Innocent Innuendo: There have been many jokes of the sort, with the most common being cannonballs being referred to as "balls" and hidden rooms and caves being called "holes".
• Instant Messenger Pigeon: There have been jokes about direct messages between players in the in-game chat manifesting as carrier pigeons, which naturally results in "carrier pigeons" being able to deliver messages in mere moments, even when the two players are miles away.
• Invisible Wall: The accessible parts of the ocean are separated by biome, and by extension, the coloration of seawater. To access new seas, players have to upgrade their boats to a sufficiently high tier; if not, a warning message will pop up in the in-game chat that they are in "dangerous seas", and their boat will eventually break if they don't go back the way they came.
• Ironic Allergy: A variant; despite being born into seafaring-rich cultures in the Ecclesiae Sea, both Guqqie and Michela stand out for being easily seasick.
• Island of Misfit Everything: The Faction Isles have long been established as a place to call home "for those that had nowhere else to turn to", and several members of the cast who settled on the Isles are indeed misfits who don't have anywhere else to go. That being said, some other cast members are from families who have long settled on the Isles, to whom piracy or adjacent activities are part of the Family Business.
• Jolly Roger: The Town Center and the buildings within are sparsely decorated with black banner with white skulls and crossed bones.
• Jump Scare: Out-of-universe, in the first half of the series, there's a Running Gag for Owen to make a visual of Freddy Fazbear pop up on everyone's screens.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: On Day 134, at the start of the finale, Scott makes a bleak joke about how Acho would be laughing at him and Graecie crying over star and calling them losers. In reality, cc!Acho is indeed watching over the conversation, invisible.
• Leave the Two Lovebirds Alone: On Day 1, while Scott is off flirting with Kyle, Cleo can be heard saying, "I'm leaving you two to it," and walking off to join the rest of the Herons in looking at Oli's crab Crub. In the end, whatever one may call the relationship doesn't really go anywhere further than that.
• Legacy Seeker: The Herons; their primary motivation is to make an impact and leave behind a legacy through discovery.
• Lighthouse Point: The treasure quest "Lighthouse on the Hill" features one west of the Kite faction docks as the quest site, where many vessels have fallen victim to the jagged rocks of the island nearby.
• Like Brother and Sister:
  • Shelby and Scott's interactions are inspired by the dynamic between sibling pair Alexis and David Rose from Schitt's Creek.
  • Will considers Graecie a surrogate younger sister figure.
• Lonely Funeral: Acho's funeral is only attended by Scott, and their grave site is only sparsely decorated to indicate it's a grave in the first place. That being said, the death in question is only witnessed by those in attendance, and their other loved ones are later informed of the death and the surrounding circumstances in the finale.
• Look Behind You: On Day 1, when Kyle and Sausage are aggressively trying to offer them Chorus Ale, Aimsey tells them there's a Kestrel behind them and runs for it. Thinking one of their crew is in danger, the two fall for it.
• Lured into a Trap:
  • On Day 1, while investigating the Corrupted Island, Aimsey starts Hearing Voices and follows them into the depths of the island, where Corruption goo tentacles suddenly come alive and presumably kill them.
  • On Day 72, Water finds a strange quest book laid out in the main tavern and crosses a broken bridge deep in the catacombs under Sandro Caravel's statue. This leads to a corridor with a button halfway through, which drops her down a Pit Trap into a Cultist's cage when it's pressed. Three days later, Shep falls for the same trap and is captured the same way.
  • On Day 75, Bek is also captured by Cultists when her statue companion Dai goes missing and she eventually finds them being used as bait for her on Monkey Island.
  • On Day 128, Apo invites Acho out to the Ice Wall under the pretenses of a "Monster Slaying quest" to try to kill star on Martyn's orders, despite Apo's reluctance to do so and Acho repeatedly questioning the oddly specific "quest requirements" all the way. It doesn't work out in the end.

M – R

• Male Sun, Female Moon: Played with. The Sun God is played by a presumably masculine admin, while the Moon God is referred to as a "goddess" and described to be "a symbol of feminine power and mystery in the celestial realm" by Cael; however, little is actually known about the Moon God in general, and their only appearances in the series are never defined by gender, but they are played by a different, masculine admin.
• Malicious Monitor Lizard: Komodo dragons that roam the Isles have poisonous venom and attack players on sight. It is zig-zagged in that with several stacks of rotten flesh, they can be tamed and ridden as mounts and look very cute when they are sitting… but they can still be hostile to those not from the tamer's faction.
• Maniac Monkeys:
  • Downplayed; the Gigantopithecus is a giant ape closely related to the orangutan in paleontology, and has been known to kill players if aggravated.
  • Played completely straight with the Zombie Apes, which are naturally hostile towards players.
• Medium Blending: A vast majority of the series takes place in Minecraft, primarily livestreamed but also occasionally involving pre-recorded segments. That being said, there are some exceptions to the rule:
  • In Owen's 1st episode, a brief flashback of his and Tubbo's first and rather violent encounter a few weeks before Day 1 is presented in live-action. The same flashback additionally serves as Tubbo's series trailer, interspersed with clips of a Minecraft adaptation of their duel (which looks significantly less dramatic by side-by-side comparison due to gameplay limitations).
  • Several important scenes and flashbacks are animated and/or drawn, including Kuervo's introductory sequence and flashbacks to the past, Aimsey and Guqqie's death discretion shots, Shep's backstory, Will's petrification, the volcanic eruption on the Faction Isles and Martyn being thrown into the sky from the blast, and Iris' death.
  • Will's backstory is partially told through short stories on his content creator counterpart's Tumblr blog.
• Mega Maelstrom: A giant whirlpool is located northwest of the Isles, far bigger than any of the pirates' boats. After Martyn first discovers it on Day 29, several investigations have been conducted on it by various cast members in the week that follows; this culminates into the server event "In Too Deep" on Day 36, where the cast sail out to the Whirlpool in search of a missing cast member, are either pulled into the Whirlpool or decide to jump in after their friends and family, and find a vast network of underground Urban Ruins deep below the surface.
• Message in a Bottle: Parodied. On Day 3, Scott finds one near the shore of an uninhabited island, with the message, "Help! I'm trapped in a Message in a Bottle making factory!" The later messages which other players find all have equally nonsensical messages.
• Middle Child Syndrome: Discussed. On Day 6, when Scott brings up his and Acho's familial situation to Martyn, Martyn immediately draws comparisons to how middle children are often considered The Un Favourite, to which Scott says it doesn't apply to Acho unless their parents had another child whose existence he's somehow unaware of.
• Misplaced Vegetation:
  • In one of the "Drunken Nightingale" quests, the treasure is marked by a flower not native to the island which the treasure is found on; it's a modded flower on an island otherwise filled with flowers from vanilla Minecraft.
  • Invoked for "The Cursed Crew – Foliage", where the superstitious pirate clan buried their treasure and planted a tree foreign to the islands in an attempt to distract the sea monster hunting them long enough to get away. The tree in question is a jungle tree on an island of acacia trees.
• Misplaced Wildlife:
  • In-universe and justified; one of the "A Terrible Beast" quests requires the player(s) to put down a tiger which is destroying the "balance of life" on a nearby island. The reason the tiger is there in the first place is because it was dumped there by "a trading vessel that specialises in exotic animal trade".
  • Many of the modded creatures from Alex's Mobs naturally spawn in the Nether dimension, but can be found in the Overworld in the Pirates world; these include the Drop Bear, the Crimson Mosquito, the Warped Toad, etc.
• Morality Kitchen Sink: The SMP's POV characters span the entirety of the morality scale, from more-or-less decent people, to well-meaning people who are willing to resort to morally questionable (or even dark) actions to accomplish their goals, to those who are more morally neutral, to remorseless murderers who have few moral qualms and are only aligned with the Faction Isles for personal benefits, to one guy who runs on Blue-and-Orange Morality from being living on a completely different scale of reality from everyone else. Even then, that's not covering villains in the main plotline or character arcs alike, who range from Sorcerous Overlords and The Heartless to power-hungry Omnicidal Maniacs and tyrants.
• More Dakka: The pirates' preferred tactic for defeating the Warped Mosco mini-boss is to just keep shooting it with bullets until it dies, preferably in teams of questers.
• Multiple Endings: There are two endings for the series pre-planned, depending on which antagonist the stream chats choose to fight against in the final boss battle, with the alternate ending being posted on the POWCreations Patreon a couple of days after the finale.
• Mythology Gag:
  • In response to Cleo's character announcement as a fellow Heron, cc!Scott the replies on Twitter, "We about to Gaslight and Gatekeep the entire sea!"
  • Owen has been jokingly nicknamed "the big pirate who makes all the rules" for being a server admin, as a nod to the preceding Rats SMP^note which is technically canon but only through Martyn's Dimensional Traveler character lore, where he was nicknamed "the big rat who makes all the rules" for the same reason.
  • On Day 1, Scar claims to have stolen his red top hat from "some guy with a wagon", and jokes about the Kites being obviously not trustworthy because "they have red names".
  • A darker example: Aimsey and Guqqie's tragic romance is a nod to another SMP and a certain ARG where their relationship didn't work out so well.
  • In his 2nd episode, Sausage starts talking to a random parrot, and mentions that he can't talk to animals… in stark contrast to his Empires Season 2 counterpart.
  • Acho's love for apple pie (or, well, "Apo pie") is a nod to an old joke from the Outsiders SMP.
  • On Day 29, Acho recalls having had recent dreams of star preparing for a tournament with some of the other pirates, where star thinks Apo's pink outfit there greatly clashes with his Kite-like personality — a clear nod to the Pink Parrots team of MCC Rising 2 (consisting of starself, Apokuna, Graecie, and Olive), which happened on Day 28 of the SMP.
  • After Sniff's arrival on the Isles on Day 52, they comment on Apo's semi-residence at the mouth of a sewer, to which Apo says he likes to think he was a rat in a past life. Sniff, in turn, replies that they wouldn't know what they'd be like if they were once a rat too.
  • Eret's Halloween prank of "Flesh-mingos" is inspired by Fundy's own prank on him on the Dream SMP about three years prior.
  • After The Reveal that the Faction Isles were created to farm souls to maintain Iris' power, Apo compares their situation to "rats in a closed-up maze".
  • An extremely subtle one in Acho's lore finale has a crucial location's coordinates marked out to be "147", a nod to the timestamp of a particularly tragic moment in Acho's perspective of Outsiders SMP.
• Never Smile at a Crocodile: One of the "A Terrible Beast" quests requires players to kill a crocodile, which are incredibly tough and hostile to players under most circumstances. There also exists a Nigh-Invulnerable Sewer Gator which lurks in the Absurdly Spacious Sewer by the Bounty Hall, intimidating every pirate who is unfortunate enough to encounter it. That being said, it's possible to hatch crocodile eggs such that the hatchling imprints on the nearest player, and tamed crocodiles born from such circumstances do not attack unless provoked (thankfully, it has only happened once so far).
• Newhart Phonecall: How chatting with NPCs works on the SMP. When a player wishes to converse with an NPC, they approach the NPC and type their part of the conversation in the public in-game chat; the NPC will then reply, both in an invisible speech bubble above their head and in the in-game chat, but only the conversing player will be able to see the chat response. If another player is not close enough to see or hear the conversation in person via the invisible speech bubble (which happens in most cases), they will be only able to see the conversing player's side of the conversation in the in-game chat, hence this trope.
• Not Always Evil: Rogue pirate factions and ships are initially characterized to be looked down on by denizens of the Faction Isles for wanting to go at sailing the seas by themselves, or being all-round forbidden to be involved with, with the series starring an Omnicidal Maniac rogue faction as an Arc Villain to boot. However, the ramifications of being a rogue are also explored throughout various characters' storylines:
  • The aforementioned omnicidal rogue faction, the Sabertooth clan, are explicitly mentioned to consist of Faction Isles rejects who hate the Isles for rejecting them.
  • If a 'rogue' were to be defined as a pirate unaffiliated with any of the four factions, a significant minority of POV characters (7/30) have gone through stints as rogues in their backstories^note Acho, Owen, Ros, Scar, Shelby, Will and Shep; Eloise also claims to be born and raised rogue as part of her Conveniently Unverifiable Cover Story, with at least three of them being explicitly brought up by rogue factions/ships/families. Despite this, no one ever actively slanders them for being ex-rogue in the storyline.^note Martyn does write libel against Ros in the first issue of "The Noisy Parrot", but it's for allegedly being a traitor, not because she was an ex-rogue.
  • Moreover, while becoming rogue of one's own volition (while aware of the Faction Isles' existence) is treated like a Face–Heel Turn in many perspectives, Acho's storyline offers the alternative that the Isles may not be always be all that great themselves and presents stars case sympathetically.
  • Any and all antagonistic rogue factions or pirates are established to be antagonistic for factors other than being rogue — the Sabertooth clan for being omnicidal kidnappers, and Captain Elyas Merton for his cruelty.
• "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: After making a Grappling Squok on Day 34, Scott decides to show it off to Apo on Day 35. Apo explains it thusly to his audience:
  cc!Apo: So, my friend Scott unlocked the power of tentacles on the Pirates SMP. Yeah, I'm serious.
• Not-So-Safe Harbor: The main island of the Faction Isles consists of five of these, with the Town Center and the four factions each taking a corner of the island; each area has its own docks, taverns, and settlements, and are populated by pirates and merchants across the morality scale. While killing and stealing from each other is typically banned from the island, the Bounty Guild operating under the town makes it quite risky even for the pirates residing there. The Ecclesiae Sea around it is unsafe for sailors as well, with patches of dangerous waters and of course, the odd bloodthirsty Kite fleet ready to plunder.
• The Nothing After Death: Bek and Acho's perspectives both depict the afterlife as some sort of void-space, with the former showing a White Void Room (albeit with the crashing of waves heard in the distance) and the latter being under the night sky, as reflective of the Stars Are Souls motif used throughout their perspective.
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore: After the Whirlpool incident and losing Aimsey, Graecie and Water discuss how life on the Faction Isles was never this life-threatening and hectic before, and with several of the islanders dead or otherwise missing in action and a "demon" on the loose, it's unlikely that things are going to be the way they used to be anymore. Afraid for her friends' safety, Graecie doesn't take this well.
• Obvious Rule Patch: At the start of the SMP, if a group of players are to take on a quest together, only one player can accept the quest and take the resultant quest points, and the players are expected to share the loot and gold among each other. However, on Day 2, Bek backstabs Owen after taking on a treasure quest to take all the loot for themself once the two have found it. On Day 3, a new party system is implemented where all quest-goers are to join a party to take the quest; they will all receive the same amount of gold individually if that is the quest reward, and PVP among members of the same party are forbidden.
• Odd Friendship:
  • Bek, a cunning and snarky Kite, and Eloise, an excitable Plucky Girl Heron, often go questing and exploring together. In the finale, Owen is quite surprised to find out the two have become friends.
  • Sausage is a money-hungry Kestrel who enjoys trolling others, but has a soft spot for Ros, a friendly and generous Nightingale.
• Once for Yes, Twice for No: During the tail end of Day 1, after the Herons find that Cruppy has somehow followed them back to the main island, Olive asks it via this answering system if it comes in peace (yes), if it's lost (no), and if it's followed them (yes). They then ask if it's corrupted (no) and if it's lying (no), though Cleo remains doubtful that it's telling the truth about the latter two questions.
• One-Steve Limit: Played with all over the spectrum.
  • Downplayed with the presence of both Acho and Apo, whose names are similar enough to cause confusion and brief miscommunication. It doesn't help that they're both in the same faction and have fairly entwined storylines.
  • Also downplayed with Cael, a Kite faction NPC, and Caer, a character from Will's backstory, who never interact with each other in the series.
  • Averted as of Day 53, with Scott pointing out that Jojo shares a name with his pet Jojoroo, who drowned under the Town Center dock earlier that day. That's not going into the fact he also has a capuchin monkey named Jojo after JojoSolos, AKA Pirate Jojo's content creator counterpart before she joined the SMP.
• Parental Abandonment: It's a common occurrence throughout the pirate world for a person to not know one or either of their parents, given how dangerous it is; Cleo remarks on Day 1 that Scott (and by extension, Acho) is one of the lucky few to have both parents as a non–first-generation pirate, and Sausage goes as far as to joke that one of Shelby's parents has to die for her to be considered a "real" pirate. Even among first-generation pirates, they tend to be estranged from their families (by choice or by force) or otherwise have little mention of their families back at home, for whatever reason if at all.
• Past Experience Nightmare: One of the potential effects of the curse on Captain Golden Beard's treasure hoard is hallucinations relating to their past traumas; if the individual doesn't rid themself of the gold fast enough, they will drift off into a nightmarish sleep, which, in these cases, may cause them to be trapped in a never-ending past experience nightmare.
• Pirate: Every POV character is one; most of them fall under the Roguish Scoundrel category, but some definitely lean closer to the Marauding Brute side more than others, especially the Kites when at their worst and certain groups of rogue pirates. Near the tail end of the SMP, Martyn and Sausage also lampshade how the Faction Isles pirates generally aren't Maurauding Brutes. According to Graecie, a life of piracy revolves around having the freedom to do as one wishes, presumably for better or worse.
• Pirate Booty: Zig-Zagging Trope.
  • Treasure quests and loot chests on uninhabited islands can result in all kinds of treasure, from bags of gold, to foodstuffs, to metals and precious minerals, to armour and weapons, to miscellaneous items like rope and torches. Kestrels play this trope straighter than most for their love for riches and luxury, but more practically-minded pirates may leave the precious minerals in favour of iron (for making tools and in Cleo's case, kegs) or other essentials. Everyone, though, would be more than happy to take the bags of gold, as they are used as currency on the Isles.
  • The reason sailors and pirates would bury their treasure also depend on the backstory of each treasure quest: in the "Drunken Nightingale" series, the titular pirates typically bury their treasure to hide their disloyalty from their community-oriented faction-mates; in the "Cursed Crew" series, the titular pirates would have buried their treasure for safekeeping from their curse; and so on.
• Pirate Girl: All of the female server-members qualify as this, for obvious reasons.
• Plot-Triggering Death: Aimsey and Guqqie's disappearances in the Day 1 quest kick off the mystery of the purple Corruption and the Hooded Figures/Cultists.
• Plotline Death: Whenever a character is Killed Off for Real, their death occurs or is implied in a cutscene separate from the main gameplay of the series. The exceptions to this are Marnie and most of the inactive pirates, whose deaths are discovered in server events, in a series where such events are just a tier down from cutscenes in terms of "narrative" significance and change.
• Poke the Poodle: After Martyn steals the Sunset Stone, Scott, Acho, and Eloise decide to break the bridge connecting the Kestrel base to the rest of the Faction Isles to mildly inconvenience them. Shep, as the only Kestrel online at the time, approves because it would allow him to let his pet hammerhead sharks out; while Kyle ends up rebuilding the bridge later that day.
• The Power of Love: In the finale, it's revealed that the Corruption is made from and feeds on pure negativity and can be countered by positive energy like the petrification, i.e. Human Sacrifice via being Taken for Granite, which was then regarded to be the "only" way to stop the spread of the Corruption. However, the pirates' recurring friendship and kindness towards Cruppy, Ivy's familiar, in the series manages to give Ivy, the host of the Corruption, enough hope for the goodness of humanity that she is petrified via Cruppy sacrificing itself and the Corruption is defeated without the use of Iris' corrupted witchcraft, thus freeing the Faction Isles from the Corruption as well as Iris' machinations to stay in power. It also helps that their concern for Cruppy and their deceased friends who were victims of the petrification sacrifices were what drove the pirates to turn against Iris and fight for Ivy in the first place; in other words, The Power of Love has driven the victories against both major antagonists of the series.
• Professional Killer: Downplayed. The Bounty Guild, run by the NPC Saffrie, allows pirates to place hits on each other at a price. It is not without its rules, with notable ones being that one may not accept bounties of oneself or one's faction-mates, and one may not kill one's target on their faction's home turf; it's later revealed that the end result of breaking these rules is usually summary execution by volcano.
• Public Secret Message: On Day 85, Ros receives instructions from Mufasa to have Acho Lured into a Trap by inviting star to a fake tea party. Despite a note not to warn star ahead of time, Ros' chat convinces her to encode 'MUFASA' into the message via strategic use of capital letters to show the invitation was written under duress. Acho figures it out and survives.
  hi fellow nightingale c:
  a Mini tea party for yoU my Friend! hosted at -842 63 1505
  please proceed with cAution – i will be there too. dont bring anything valuable like money!
  See you soon Acho!
• Red Sky, Take Warning: Discussed on Day 1, as Graecie comments on the abruptness of the storm as the cast set sail to investigate the Corrupted Island, saying she didn't notice red skies that morning.
• Relative Error: On Day 2, befittingly as a concerned older sibling, Scott asks Owen if Acho, whom he'd been talking to and questing with earlier that day, has been saying anything about stars past. Owen immediately gets suspicious of the questions… and assumes that Scott's trying to get a date. He's awkwardly corrected immediately after that.
• Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: A handful of backstory characters are named after figures from mythology, including Ajax, Icarus, Iris, and Mithras (after a war god from Persian myth). Another few have names derived from Latin or Roman history, such as Aurelia and Nocturnus.
• Rescue Arc: On Day 75, Acho and Apo launch a search party for Marnie, the Nightingale faction leader who has gone missing during a quest, and recruit Scott and Shelby to join. When the latter two also get captured while their backs are turned, the two Nightingales return to the Isles on Day 76 to gather reinforcements and launch a second rescue mission for all the pirates who have been kidnapped by Cultists so far.
• Rewatch Bonus:
  • With the finale revealing that the main antagonists are sisters and the series conflict is founded on a dysfunctional family's internal feud gone extremely overboard, every interaction with the antagonists becomes both funnier and sadder, while every interaction with Cruppy becomes more poignant with the knowledge that it's Ivy's Morality Pet and to her, those interactions generally run on Restored My Faith in Humanity.
  • Will's perspective is filled with this, including how him climbing up to the crow's nest of the fishing boat ruin to get a better look at the Whirlpool on Day 36 may be a nod to him having had to do so in childhood on the Luscinia, his stream manifesting as the skies is possibly related to how his father spoke of his late mother as "the moon and the skies" for him, or the fact that his lore finale's starting soon screen is set at dusk as opposed to in daylight as Foreshadowing for his impending demise.
• Robbing the Dead: The treasure quest "The Unclaimed Inheritance" requires the player-character to break open the grave site of a rich family located next to a crypt, in order to take the gold and valuables.
  The treasure is said to be amongst their burial site, at the altar they are kept under, on a small island off the coast off their manor. Perhaps desecrating graves may be a bit much, even for a pirate… right…?
• Running Gag:
  • The "land boat" phenomenon, where a creator-character accidentally places their (usually just purchased) boat either inland or on shore instead of in the ocean, often requiring admin assistance to move the boat back out to sea.
  • For about the first two weeks of the SMP, the sloops each of the pirates have can somehow be occupied by mobs at the ship's wheel. This has mind-bogglingly led to many incidents of various mobs, especially flies, stealing random players' boats and in at least one case, driving it around. This has since been mitigated during the second boat upgrade, where the boats can be occupied by more than one person or mob at a time, though unwanted mobs can still be commonly seen occupying boat seats, with occasional hijacking still occurring due to misclicks.

S – Z

• Sailor's Ponytail: Several members of the cast are known to wear this as part of their daily ensemble.
• Seven Deadly Sins: At their worst, all of the pirate factions other than the Nightingales can qualify for these:
  • The Herons have Pride for their desire to become known to the world. Acho, who was born and raised into the faction but later chose to defect, has also described them to be "stuck-up snobs", and many other detractors have accused them for having an It's All About Me attitude.
  • The Kestrels are obviously Greed for their materialism, with the occasional dash of Gluttony and Lust for their love of luxury and hedonism.
  • The Kites are obviously Wrath for their bloodthirst, though if the Recruitment Officer's description of them being Glory Seekers is true, Pride might make it to their list as well.
• Sewer Gator: One crocodile resides in the sewer network underneath the Town Center. Its Nigh-Invulnerability and ever-lurking presence is an obstacle to any seafarer going down to visit the Bounty Hall.
• Ship Tease:
  • Acho and Owen get a lot of it on Day 42. Among many examples:
    • Before the Herons take on their first Fortress, Owen convinces Scott to sail over his ship that they're taking together and attack Acho with cannonballs because it would be funny, and later justifies that he's "negging".
    • While on the Sabertooth clan's island, the crew wind up trying to skip the night before looking for further clues on how to enter the locked tavern. Owen finds a tiny hut with one bed and a piston as a bedside table. Then Acho enters the hut, comments on how little space there is inside, and instead of setting stars own bed down on the other side of the "table", breaks the table to set stars bed down next to Owen.
      Owen: (to everyone else on the quest) You guys can take your time.
• Shock and Awe: The Vengeful Spirit boss of the Fortresses uses a Channeling trident to summon lightning on any player nearby.
• Shout-Out:
  • A few are inherent to the mod-pack used in the series, most notably from Alex's Mobs:
    • The advancement for a seagull stealing a player's food is named "Mine? Mine? Mine?".
    • The appearance and attacks of the Warped Mosco are based on Buzzwole from Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, something that is not overlooked by the content creators themselves.
  • Multiple characters reference "You Are A Pirate" on Day 1.
  • Several to One Piece: Flam the shipwright NPC is presumably named after and vaguely resembles "Iron Man" Franky (real name Cutty Flam), Martyn refers to the L.O.O.T. Shard he's looking for as "the One Piece… of Treasure", and his song for the series, "The Faction Isles", is a Song Parody of "Binks' Sake" from the anime series.
  • On Day 8, Red suggests to call the "illegal drugs" he intends to sell with Apo "skooma".
  • There are plenty of Moby-Dick jokes to make about the whale population in the waters of the Isles.
  • There exists an ambience disc of a ticking clock in the mod-pack, which Eloise makes a plan on Day 12 to trick Kyle into thinking it's a Time Bomb. Several players' first reaction to hearing the disc is to start quoting "The Mysterious Ticking Noise".
  • On Day 20, Will muses on how he was lucky to have washed up on the Faction Isles instead of anywhere else, and considers a hypothetical situation where he'd call on the help of a whale or a couple of sea turtles while marooned on a strange island with no boat. He immediately dismisses the idea as ridiculous and unfeasible.
  • On Day 45, Martyn questions the Slayer about Mufasa and her kidnappers; she replies she does not know anyone named Mufasa, but comments it sounds like a lion's name. Martyn also later writes in Issue 2 of "The Noisy Parrot" referring to the Sabertooth clan as Mufasa's "cubs".
  • On Day 57, in one of Eloise's first conversations with Luanne, the then-new art supplies trader NPC, one of the first things she requests is for Luanne to paint her "like one of her French girls".
  • Will and Shep's Day 130 lore streams, both titled "What's Left Undone", are titled after the song of the same title from the Bastion original soundtrack. Will's perspective also ends with a cover of "Mother, I'm Here (Zulf's Theme)" from the same OST.
  • Martyn's final YouTube episode (Episode 19) is titled "A SONG OF ICE AND CORRUPTION".
• Sibling Rivalry: As stated on Day 3, Acho felt as though star and stars brother were constantly pit against each other in their upbringing, resulting in such a dynamic on Acho's end. By the time the series starts, though, star seems to have grown past this, while Scott is just glad that star is alive and they still care about each other.
• Sixth Ranger: While most of the cast arrive on the Faction Isles on Day 1 at the latest, Shelby, Shep, and Sniff join the SMP on Day 52, and Eret, Jojo, and Seapeekay the day after them. Scott privately questions their presence on Day 53, wondering how they could have arrived there while the Ice Wall at least partially surrounds the Isles, while Owen laughs him off for growing up sheltered.
• Spiders Are Scary: Nocturnus and Eclipsa's backstory states that the monsters of the nightmare realm have managed to escape into the real world through their cursed magic, especially in the form of spiders. The Golden Isle, warped by their magic, has also changed its form to look like a grotesque Giant Spider.
  The once resplendent Golden Isles began to warp under the unchecked influence of the rampant nightmare magic. […] The worst transformation, however, was the spiders. Emerging from the very nightmares the wizards had sought to control, these grotesque creatures roamed freely, their silken webs covering buildings and ensnaring the unfortunate.
• Spikes of Doom: Played for Drama. The Kishi quest traps any and all travellers who take on it inside its catacombs; in order to escape, a quester must kill their companion by throwing them into a pit of stalagmites. Since it's a pair of brothers who end up taking on this quest, this doesn't end well.
• Star-Crossed Lovers:
  • Aimsey and Guqqie, as with their counterparts in many other parts of the Minecraft Multiverse. This time around, it's because they're part of two different factions, and they've been trying to keep their mutual affection for each other a secret for months. This doesn't end well for either of them.
  • Implied heavily on Day 36, where the pirates find a series of unsent letters written by Edith to someone called Elise, who were separated by the unbreakable Ice Wall as the city fell into ruins.
  • The backstory for the quest "Double Strawberries" is centred around two pirate captains whose romance was considered scandalous because they were from two rival factions.
• Stars Are Souls: Acho spends most of the series periodically chatting with a character represented by the stars in the night sky, implied and later confirmed to be a deceased loved one. Graecie and Scott independently continue this tradition in the finale in regard to Acho after stars passing.
  Graecie: Every night, I'll look up… and I'll see you in the stars… and the freedom of the waves… the bravery of the other pirates… Every day, the moon will bring you to the highest point, and I will… I will see you then.
• The Straight and Arrow Path: While guns are prevalent in the setting, many of the players still carry a bow and arrows around with them as weapons, especially after the admins nerfed the damage dealt by firearms after Chapter 1.
• Stock Market Game: Starting from Day 22, a stock market centred on bananas has been implemented on the server; players can purchase bananas from the NPC Pip on Sundays and sell them back for the rest of the week, where the selling price Pip would take would then change by the day. However, the stocks have had a fairly poor track record and tend to fall drastically more often than rise.
• A Storm Is Coming: On Day 1, as the pirates are sent out on a server-wide quest to investigate the Corrupted purple island, a thunderstorm suddenly rolls in and the waves quickly become choppier. Following this, during every instance a character encounters the Corrupted phantom of Aimsey, the weather quickly turns stormy as well.
• Storming the Beaches: The Revenge Raid on Day 77 kicks off with an amphibious assault on the Cultists' island camp, where most of the cast begin an attack on the Cultists by land, while Owen, Scott, and Shelby launch a cannon attack at sea as a temporary distraction before joining the fight on land. This being Minecraft, it's a lot easier than most other settings might have it.
• Storming the Castle: The finale has the surviving cast sail to Iris' temple after Cruppy to learn the truth behind the Corruption vs. Cultist plot, and to choose to defeat Iris.
• Suicidal Sadistic Choice: The quest for the treasure of Kishi traps any and all travellers who take on it inside its catacombs and requires a quester to kill their companion by throwing them into a pit of Spikes of Doom to escape. By mutual brotherly instincts (and possibly fueled with individual self-worth issues), Scott is prepared to pull off a Heroic Sacrifice, but Acho ends up pulling a last-second More Hero than Thou, pushing Scott out of the way and falling into the stalagmite pit in the process.
• Suicide by Assassin: Defied; the Bounty Guild's rulebook has a clause forbidding this.
• Super Spit: The Warped Mosco mini-boss has a ranged attack where it spits hemolymph, i.e. insect blood, at the target player, often resulting in large amounts of damage taken in one go.
• Switching P.O.V.:
  • As expected from most Minecraft collaborative series, viewers can choose to watch the series from the perspectives of each of the different pirates.
  • Owen's 2nd episode briefly switches over to Kyle's POV to cover Guqqie's disappearance while his own POV covers Aimsey's. On a more lighthearted note, his 5th episode briefly cuts to Scar's POV for his reaction to Owen scamming him back on Day 5, and his 8th episode cuts to Bek's POV for how he almost gets caught by her while he's carrying out his Fortress "heist" on Day 46. His 12th episode also briefly switches to Eloise's POV for a lore scene because his own footage of it got corrupted.
  • Martyn's 17th episode switches between Miss Snapdragon's POV (livestreamed from Owen's Twitch channel) to cover Water and Jeffery's wedding and Martyn's own perspective to cover his commentary while scheming for the bridal assassination from the roof, and later switches to Sausage's POV to cover him acting at "Blondbeard"'s backup to try and also fail at carrying out the bridal assassination.
• Taken for Granite: The Cultists' modus operandi is to kidnap an oftentimes unwitting victim to be a Human Sacrifice to contain the Corruption and maintain Iris' power, though anyone who gets caught up in their petrification beam may suffer this. So far, the list of named characters who have been on the receiving end of this fate include Guqqie, Dai (whose true name is unknown), Marnie, Hook, Bek, Will, and just about everyone who has been inactive in the month leading up to the finale.
• Talk Like a Pirate:
  • Enforced by some of the creators, who have chosen to set their game language to Pirate Speak for the duration of the SMP.
  • Within the realms of the roleplay universe itself, some of the NPCs speak in such a manner.
• Teacher's Pet: Discussed on Day 36, where Eloise compares Owen to the kind of kid in school who would tell the teacher they forgot to give out homework. Owen takes offense to this, especially correcting the fact he went to private school, not pirate school.
• There Are No Therapists: Alluded to on Day 36; after the server-wide Whirlpool investigation, Acho asks the Travelling Merchant if there's anywhere around to get therapy or get drunk. The Merchant directs star to the tavern, with no further mention of getting anyone any psychological help.
• Time-Limit Boss: Downplayed with the Vengeful Spirit miniboss in Fortresses; players have to beat the boss before it despawns after a certain time limit, with a small chance of dropping a Relic upon its defeat. However, fighting the boss in itself is optional — players can leave the Fortress with their hard-earned gold before it spawns in, or they can outlast the boss until it naturally despawns; it just means that they won't get a Relic out of it, making getting enchantments and other perks significantly harder later in the series.
• Tin-Can Telephone: According to Acho, this is how the in-game chat group system manifests in-universe.
• Together in Death:
  • After being killed by Iris, Bek finds themself in a blank void, where Dai is seen waving at them, whom they run off to join. In the finale, their statues are seen next to each other in Iris' temple.
  • Implied in this case; Will's final lore stream ends with his petrification, followed by a cover of "Mother, I'm Here (Zulf's Theme)" from the Bastion OST. Considering that Will's mother suffered from Death by Childbirth long before the events of the SMP…
  • Acho's character finale has them speak with Mahara in the stars for the last time after their death, hoping for once that he would respond; this time, Mahara does respond.
• Tragic Bromance: At the start of the SMP, Apo and Acho bond over only joining the Nightingales due to having no other apparent option, a shared distaste for labels, and some non-canon deaths over silly, trivial reasons. However, Apo is eventually forced into a Friend-or-Idol Decision while trying to pursue his own individuality and attempts to kill Acho on Martyn's orders as Blondbeard because of this; after Acho talks him out of this, Apo ends up in a coma for several days from falling into icy seawater, with Acho diving down to save him. By the time he wakes up in the finale, Apo can't even apologize and Never Got to Say Goodbye because Acho has already died on a different quest while he was still unconscious.
• Two Lines, No Waiting: Due to how different perspectives correspond to different individual arcs alongside the main overarching storyline, Four Lines, All Waiting and Third Line, Some Waiting are the norm for the series, but big events tend to cause multiple plots to converge, with one notable example being Water's wedding on Day 125 tying together most of the major plotlines:
  • Water gets married and is Widowed at the Wedding at Ros' castle, which both have been anticipating for most of the SMP;
  • Martyn tries to carry out his bounty on Water to intimidate everyone as Captain Blondbeard;
  • Sausage finds his uncle's ultra-powerful sword and becomes Brainwashed and Crazy enough to help Martyn crash the wedding;
  • Apo tries and fails to help Martyn crash the wedding and is sent to kill one of his closest friends, leading up to the climax of his arc;
  • And just to tie back into the overarching storyline, Bek is kidnapped, tries to kill Iris, and is killed; and Kuervo gets kidnapped by a Cultist in the end as well, though this ties into his personal arc in Third Line, Some Waiting fashion.
• Urban Segregation: The X-shaped Faction Isles are divided into five main sections, with one faction base and surrounding territories on each corner — the Kites in the northwest, the Herons in the northeast, the Nightingales in the southeast, and the Kestrels in the southwest. Between the Kestrel and Nightingale bases, on the south side of the island, is the Town Center and neutral territory in which many may congregate. That being said, despite the different landmarks, there is functionally no difference between each faction base and access is generally open for everyone, regardless of an individual's faction^note the only known exception being the Heron library, and the only big rule is a ban on killing anyone at their own faction base for a bounty.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: The entire cast of pirates are ostensibly in different factions with rivalries between each other on both individual and faction-wide levels, but during the "In Too Deep" event on Day 36, most of them still try to protect and care for each other, invoking No One Gets Left Behind on instinct, and only start bickering and blaming each other again once they're safe and back on the Faction Isles.
• Wainscot Society: The world of piracy functions as one. While they generally live on the brink of international governmental rule as outlaws and are scattered across the Ecclesiae Sea, the Faction Isles are one of the main settlements upon which they base their operations from, with their own leaders and values in each faction; they live parallel to conventional society, advertising itself as a home for the persecuted and those with nowhere else to go. A significant number of our protagonists hail directly from families that have established themselves in the world of piracy for at least a generation, in one way or another. Meanwhile, the Faction Isles also make semi-regular attempts to recruit more to their numbers, with many POV characters being inducted from normalcy into the Isles' populace, and a few among the survivors have ended up transitioning between the two worlds after the series ends, if not leaving altogether after their stint on the Isles.
• Walls of Tyranny:
  • The Ice Walls surrounding the Ecclesiae Sea separate the lands within from the outside world, and were established to contain the denizens within as a "farm" for Human Sacrifice; with Iris' death in the finale, the magic holding the Ice Walls together are set to dissipate and cause them to fall, allowing the cast to explore beyond in the post-canon era.
  • In a more localized example, Naya is a totalitarian island state surrounded by walls regulating people's entry and exit from the country; Kuervo intends to take down these walls separating Naya from the world, both literally and figuratively, once Naya is freed.
• Wax Museum Morgue: In the finale on Day 134, the pirates visit Iris' crumbling temple in the far north, in which her throne room is littered with the petrified statues of almost everyone who didn't show up for the finale, having been Killed Offscreen — barring a couple of exceptions, who did die on-screen but weren't known to be dead in-universe until that point. The pirates are rightfully horrified upon finding this out.
• Weaponized Animal: In the mod-pack, tamed Kangaroos can be equipped with mêlée weapons and the top half of armour sets (helmets and chestplates), and will attack using these weapons.
• Wedding Episode: After months of planning and delay, Water and Jeffery's wedding takes place on Day 125 (December 1st). It ends with Martyn and Sausage crashing the event, and Water being Widowed at the Wedding when Jeffery gets murdered in front of half the Faction Isles.
• Wedding Smashers: Several people have plotted to crash Water and Jeffery's wedding long before it occurs; what comes to pass is that Martyn, as Captain Blondbeard, murders Jeffery in front of everyone then tries to kill Water as well, while being backed up by Sausage. When this plan is foiled both ways, he starts indiscriminately firing at the wedding guests and plotting retaliation.
• Welcome Episode: The SMP Launch Day (Day 1) takes place on "Recruitment Day", where new pirates sail to the Faction Isles to join up with the pre-established factions with pre-established members. The mini-event between Days 52 and 53 also functions as this, as the latecoming Sixth Rangers are introduced and inducted into one of the four factions in a similar way to Recruitment Day.
• Wet T-Shirt Contest: Discussed in response to the cast announcements, as cc!Sausage comments hosting one between his character and Owen's after finding out the latter has a Navel-Deep Neckline. Since the bulk of the series takes place in Minecraft, this doesn't happen in canon proper.
• Wham Episode: The "Final Wishes" event on Day 112 reveals the true story of Sandro Caravel and the Faction Isles: his real name was Ajax Suarez, and he founded the place while serving the Church of Iris in an attempt at starting anew, only for the place to turn out to be a source of sacrificed "free souls" to keep Iris in power. After losing his new wife and children to the Cultists and witnessing the rewriting of history, he fled to a distant island, only to be further driven mad by the guilt of his past actions and possibly hunted down by Iris.
• Wham Shot: On Day 26, while exploring the stony ruins of the Corrupted Island, Owen, Scott, and Water see a shower of purple corruption particles on the petrified tentacles… but when Scott zooms in to look at the particles with his spyglass, he sees Aimsey covered in purple Corruption while surrounded by the particles, whom Owen and Water cannot see. This starts a chain of events and sightings leading up to the second server event on Day 36, "In Too Deep".
• "What Do They Fear?" Episode:
  • Captain Golden Beard's cursed treasure quest inflicts a curse of any pirate who tries to take from the hoard, with one of its most common effects being hearing whispers of their worst fears (at least in the moment) as they start to drift off into a nightmarish sleep they may never wake from.
  • On Day 93, the backstory behind the curse from the Captain Golden Beard quest is explored; when Nocturnus and Eclipsa trap the pirates in an "eternal slumber", the whispers that follow them throughout the dreamscape also reflect on their worst fears and insecurities, which in some cases have changed since the player-character went on the quest.
• What the Hell, Hero?: After tracking down Martyn and Apo torturing Cruppy for information on Monkey Island on Day 106, Graecie and Kuervo lay onto them for hurting an innocent creature with the mental capacity of a small child, which has done no direct harm to anyone and only hates them because they are so actively antagonistic to it in the first place. Apo only stops defending himself after accidentally hurting Graecie in the crossfire, while Martyn soon runs off to dish out some unwitting Misplaced Retribution on whom he thought was the informant, and to prepare to make a Face–Heel Turn as The Unfettered.
• A World Half Full: From the get-go, the Faction Isles and the Ecclesiae Sea in general is presented as a Crapsaccharine World, trapped in a thousand-year-old conflict between the world-eating Corruption and the Church of Iris running on Human Sacrifice, neither of which are safe options to side with, and the opening narration of the series outright discusses how every pirate's life pales in comparison with this life-destroying conflict… and that's without going into how badly other humans may treat each other in everyone's individual plotlines. However, the pirates whose storylines we follow manage to uncover the truth about the Faction Isles and the world they live in following The Reveal and decide to fight the status quo to put an end to both the Corruption and the Church of Iris; even if they had failed to do so, there's still comfort in that they learnt the truth and tried their best, suggesting others after them might be able to figure things out and learn from the past, and that it's possible to find happiness and love in such a dysfunctional world.
• Worst Wedding Ever: Water's wedding to Jeffery has been set up to end in chaos from the moment it was announced, with several SMP members making plans to crash the wedding and wreak havoc weeks, if not months ahead of time (or longer for in-universe time). In the end, what goes down on Day 125 ends with the groom being crushed into a pile of gore via an egregious case of Anvil on Head, two rogue (and in one case, Brainwashed and Crazy) Kestrels trying and failing to assassinate the bride, injuries on both sides, and no good times for anyone involved.
• "X" Marks the Spot: For a pirate series, the SMP plays with this a lot.
  • It's mostly averted as treasure quests only give instructions on the approximate location of the chest, with few to no clues on where it is located exactly, though the instructions will update to give further clues when the player reaches the island the treasure is found on.
  • One of the "Drunken Nightingale" quests downplays it by having the pirate mark the location of the treasure with their favourite flower, which is not native to the island, and thus still requires a keen eye for detail to find.
  • The treasure quest "The Dribbling Cave" marks the location of the treasure with an 'X', but since the marking is a cobblestone 'X' under a waterfall and is surrounded and camouflaged by other variants of stone, the quest instructions state it's quite tricky to find it at all.
  • The treasure quest "The Snagged Scripture" also marks the location of the treasure with an 'X', but it's with polished granite on a bridge of unpolished granite, and the admins have acknowledged that it's meant to be subtle and only obvious in retrospect.
  • The pirates' atlases allow them to invoke this, as one of the location markers in the maps is shaped like a large 'X'.
  • On Day 1, Graecie discusses this while struggling with a treasure quest, saying she'd mark her treasure with a big 'X' so she wouldn't forget where she placed it.
• You Do Not Want To Know: Early on Day 3, Sausage and Oli stumble across something allegedly larger than a whale in the sea; Acho then asks them if it's "the Big Thrasher". When Oli asks what that even is, Acho's reply is essentially this trope. It's soon confirmed to be a very large Threatening Shark.
• Your Favorite: On Day 3, in an attempt to bridge the gap and reconcile, Scott decides to make Acho an apple pie, knowing that's what star liked before star left home. It works.

---

Becoming a legend, our name in the stars
Treasured forever and baring our scars
This is our story, do it in style
All aboard! The Faction Isles!
(Yo ho!)