YMMV / Pirates SMP

• Awesome Music: "Acuity", a solemn piece of music that plays during the Cultists' scenes, a great tune that captures the underlying dark secret of the Factions Isles.
• Bizarro Episode: Outside of the introspective final minute or two, Apo's Day 71 (Oct 8) lore stream consists of him starting a "Cow-volution" to free cows from their pens and spread them across the factions' bases, while dragging along a very confused Graecie who's as equally weirded out as the viewers. The fact another character is convinced this is All Just a Dream drives the point home how nonsensical it all is. Following the Day 112 "Final Wishes" event (Nov 18), cc!Apo has confirmed on Twitter that the livestream was meant to be foreshadowing to the main plot twist of the event, which still doesn't make it any less strange to watch.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • Scott's "Tentacle Man" bit derived from his use of the Grappling Squok crossbow eventually culminates into some predictable jokes about inappropriate use of tentacles and him getting the crossbow and "tentacle powers" from getting… overly friendly with a giant squid while out at sea.
  • The multitudes of jokes made about character deaths from both creators and characters alike, including lots of unwarranted stone puns.
  • In the finale, Scott repeatedly referring to his 100k-gold inheritance as a life insurance payout from his younger brother's death.
• Epileptic Trees:
  • In his Twitter character bio, Martyn's character artwork depicts him with prominent scars: one under his right eye, many along his right arm, and one over his left collarbone. Life SMP fans immediately take note that these are where the Fragments on his Life series character are located, prompting much speculation on the connection between his personas in both series; it's later confirmed that the Martyns of the V-Tuber lore (i.e. Pirates) and the Life series are connected, but how exactly has not been revealed yet.
  • From the start of the SMP, ever since the revelation of Aimsey and Guqqie's presumed deaths, there have been plenty of theories about who's going to survive the story and who's going to die. Among them, it's near-universally agreed that at least one of the Denholm brothers is going to die, with Scott being the more likely candidate. The fans had the right idea, but the wrong brother.
  • After the third and fourth server events, the rescue mission and the Revenge Raid, the POWCreations Discord server discussed the theory of the Faction Isles being created to lure in new pirates for Human Sacrifice by the Cultists. And the server rejoiced after the "Final Wishes" event.
  • There have been heaps of theories about the true identities of the Cultists; many fans on the POWCreations Discord server have tried to connect various NPCs, including the townsfolk and especially the Denholm parents as being involved. None of these theories are proven to be true, though the latter receives a Fandom Nod on Day 112 as an in-universe theory.
• Fan Nickname:
  • As with other SMPs and due to fandom overlap and osmosis, since most of the characters share their names with their content creator counterparts, they are differentiated with the character and content creator (cc!) prefix tags, respectively, though the Pirates official character prefix tag is designated as "p!", used by both fans and the content creators involved.
  • The Recruitment Officer is sometimes called "NPCPK", a portmanteau of NPC and Seapeekay, the content creator who plays him.
  • The Kestrel faction is quickly dubbed "the Kisstrels" by the fandom due to the pseudo-polycule and inherent Threesome Subtext of their custom of kissing each other, complete with Affectionate Nicknames. The creators are equally quick to adopt the nickname for the faction and reference it several times on stream.
  • Iris is more commonly known in the fandom as the "Hot Lady", the "Pretty Woman", or other variants which comment on her attractiveness.
  • Apo and Graecie's Day 71 (Oct 8) "Cow-volution" lore stream/segment has been dubbed "cow lore".
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • Most characters' lives before the Faction Isles, or otherwise in the pre-canon era. It helps that barring a handful of exceptions, there is little elaboration on the characters' backstories in canon, and even many of the characters with canon backstories generally only give a brief overview of events.
  • What the world is like beyond the Ice Wall has never been confirmed, which makes for great worldbuilding fuel on top of fanfic fuel.
  • As the series ends with The Fellowship Has Ended And the Adventure Continues, fanfics set in the post-canon era have plenty of room to explore what becomes of the cast, and whether Apo and Graecie can find a way to bring the petrified Back from the Dead. cc!Sausage even explicitly encourages this form of exploration for his character post-canon.
• Fanon:
  • Some fans write that Acho has decided to Shed the Family Name after running away pre-canon to distance themself from their "terrible parents"; canon itself neither confirms nor denies this, with only Scott ever referencing Acho by full name and Acho never contesting this. If fans have them take a substitute family name after this, it would more often than not be 'Nightingale'. For the same reason as above, some fans also believe that Scott ends up choosing to do the same after distancing himself from the family as well, particularly in a post-canon context with his plan to leave the Isles behind, though a different surname would be substituted if it were to be the case.
  • The fandom consensus is split between Scar murdering everyone on the Flying Jellie, hence its sinking, or him being the Sole Survivor who couldn't save everyone else, based on a few ambiguous statements on Day 5.
  • Despite there being no canonical evidence for it, many fans believe that the Denholm parents hate animals, likely to strike contrast with Scott being The Beastmaster in canon and re-frame his zoological arc as a retrospective act of rebellion.
• Friendly Fandoms: Due to creator overlap, Pirates SMP fans are often already fans of the Empires SMP (and its related series Afterlife SMP and New Life SMP), the Area Unknown SMP, Hermitcraft, the Life SMP, the Outsiders SMP, the Rats SMP, and/or the WitchCraft SMP.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Aimsey and Graecie trash-talking rogue pirates in front of Acho on Day 1 hits harder upon the Day 3 reveal that Acho spent the past year (to year and a half) sailing as a rogue, and hits even harder after their lore finale in that they found the home they never had on the Isles in a rogue companion whom they recently had a Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure with and who just died before the events of the SMP; at that point, Innocently Insensitive doesn't even begin to cover it.
  • On Day 93, Seapeekay jokes that the reason he's the only Kite to show up for the Halloween event is because all of his fellow faction members have died. While this is untrue as several of the other Kites still show up for the rest of the series, it becomes painfully true as the inactive Kites are all revealed to be Killed Offscreen in the finale, and even among the more active ones, Bek is killed on Day 125, Kuervo leaves the faction on Day 126, and Eret's whereabouts are unknown as of the series' end (though Word of God also has them Killed Offscreen), leaving Seapeekay as effectively the last Kite standing in the finale.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: On Day 1, the Recruitment Officer is incredibly bitter about not being accepted by any of the Factions. Later in the series, Seapeekay, who shares a content creator counterpart with the Recruitment Officer, get accepted as a Kite on the Isles.
• He's Just Hiding:
  • Mufasa, the Sabertooth leader, is implied to have been blown up with the gold during the Halloween event on Day 93, just as Nocturnus and Eclipsa said would happen, as they never appear again in the series and are only mentioned in the context of the past at best. However, since dreams and nightmares are a recurring theme of the event and the "death" was never shown on screen, many fans have theorized that it was all just an illusion/dream and that the real Mufasa is still out there somewhere.
  • cc!Apo has confirmed in a post-canon livestream that every creator-character who doesn't appear in the finale has been Killed Off for Real, even if they aren't seen among the petrified in Iris' temple. However, since Eret had just livestreamed two days before the finale and isn't seen among the petrified, fans are inclined to believe that they are still alive, especially because the idea of them sleeping through the finale and missing all the server lore is funny to imagine. To a lesser extent, Olive and Sniff are believed by some to be still alive because they weren't seen among the petrified, giving them some Plausible Deniability despite not having appeared on the server in months.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • During their first meeting, Acho introduces starself as "Acho, of… around?", to which Graecie responds, "Not around here, that's for sure." Later the same day, it's revealed that Acho was in fact, raised on the Isles and thus from "around here", as in having been on the Isles for even longer than Graecie has.
  • On Day 8, Apo bizarrely compares pro-Cruppy fans to apologists for Owen's character on the Outsiders SMP, who, for the unwary, turns out to be a virulent Fantastic Racist and major antagonist. At the end of the series, Cruppy is revealed to be Good All Along and dies by Heroic Sacrifice, which couldn't be more different from Outsiders Owen.
• Ho Yay: The Kestrels' custom of kissing each other. Normally, this would fall under a few completely different, non-YMMV tropes, but considering Kyle is canonically straight, it counts in his case.
• Idiosyncratic Ship Naming: The Kisstrels, in reference to most of the Kestrels forming a de facto polycule from the start of the series.
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: The main antagonistic figures in the plot, the Corruption and the Cultists, have been subject to much intrigue in spite of being directly responsible for several deaths and kidnappings among the Pirate cast. Aurelia and Hudson Denholm, on the other hand, have been near-universally hated from the get-go for creating a toxic home environment for their children and for their at best flawed parenting… despite not making any appearances in the series proper.
• Memetic Loser: At the start of the SMP, Acho has been ragged on by stars stream chat for being unable to get a date, whether it's with a player or an AI-run NPC. There has even been one instance where one of the server mods jokes about stars pet dog getting more bitches than star. It's turned around in the last quarter after the introduction of the Enchantress, whom star apparently has very good relationship stats with.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Im sorry, but there is nothing straight about that twink lmao You're delusional if you think otherwise haha". ^ExplanationShortly after the cast announcements, one Twitter user claimed that p!Scott "looks straight" based on his official artwork; this is cc!Scott's response. In turn, many MCYT fans think the fact cc!Scott of all people has to Word of Gay his own characters is ridiculous, given how MCYT roleplay characters generally default to their content creator counterpart's queer identity unless stated otherwise.
  • Martyn's exes. ^ExplanationA recurring joke explanation for why Martyn has hated the Herons on sight is because all three of its starter members are his ex-partners in some shape or form: Cleo was his assigned soulmate in Double Life who left him in the dust and whom he accidentally killed once with "bad math", Scott was his close ally in Limited Life whom he backstabbed in the finale, and he was briefly engaged to Water on the Rats SMP when she was a guest in an attempt to steal her fortune.
  • Scott is an honorary Kisstrel. ^ExplanationBased on Scott's tendency to flirt with about half the Kestrel faction, fans have decided (with his content creator counterpart's blessing) to throw him into the polycule as well, which has led to a lot of shippy fanart in the fan community social media tags.
  • Heron InTheLittleWood. ^ExplanationDespite being in the ambitious and money-hungry Kestrel faction, Martyn engages in much Heron-esque behaviour like charting the accessible waters of the Faction Isles and having an Intrepid Journalist (albeit sometimes Immoral Journalist) streak, which never fails to garner teasing from his stream chat and for him as a character to get annoyed about.
  • Chair trauma / TW chair. ^{Explanation (Spoilers)}In a post-canon behind-the-scenes livestream, Krow dissects its character's backstory animatics and how Kuervo was stabbed in the eye with a chair. Its chat immediately erupts into jokes about how Kuervo having flashbacks whenever he sees a chair of all things.
• One True Threesome: The Kisstrels, the polycule encompassing the members of the Kestrel faction, based on the canonical Threesome Subtext (and more). While there are varying accounts to who is part of the polycule, general consensus goes that Martyn, Oli, and Sausage are at the heart of it; Scar (and more rarely, Shelby) is sometimes thrown into the mix; and Scott, despite not being in the faction himself, is often considered an honorary Kisstrel for his own flirtations. On the other hand, Guqqie is almost always excluded from the polycule out of respect for her canonical relationship with Aimsey; Kyle was initially considered part of it, but has generally been left out since cc!Kyle confirmed his character is straight and that he's uncomfortable with shipping; and Shep doesn't get involved with everyone else's shenanigans enough to be shipped.
• Rooting for the Empire: During the Halloween event, one of Acho's seagull chatters notably cheers for the Ghost who's been sending everyone whispers of their worst fears or insecurities, seemingly out of desire to be a devil's advocate and to see their preferred characters suffer for angst.
• Writer-Induced Fanon:
  • In the Pirates canon, Scar wears his Hermitcraft Season 8 counterpart's tycoon top hat, and claims to have had some sort of encounter with said counterpart in his wagon (e.g. breaking the wagon's wheel) in order to get that hat. In reaction to this, there is recurring fan speculation that Hermit-Scar and Pirate-Scar are actually the same character, and the questionable claim of having killed Hermit-Scar for the hat is written off as That Man Is Dead.
  • In turn, Scar makes nods to the Life SMP and references his fellow Hermits PearlescentMoon and Grian on Day 5, which in turn fuel the theory and common interpretation that the Flying Jellie crew are quite simply the Boatem Crew (also from Hermitcraft Season 8) under a different name who suffered from Death by Origin Story.

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