Due to the nature of the work and medium, all spoilers are off.
Accidental Innuendo: In Sausage's 31st episode of Season 1, he asks who's "f(l)apping" in his basement when he hears an Elder Guardian flopping around in a cell there.
Awesome Ego: In Season 1, Sausage has a prideful and bombastic streak, but he has his fair share of fans. It helps that he's also very sincere with his allies, and it's explicitly stated in canon that his connection to those he cares for is what holds his ambition back from going full villain-mode.
Ensemble Dark Horse: In Season 2, in spite of being an NPC figure made from an armour stand, Hermes is adored by a good chunk of the fan-base, especially on Tumblr. When Jimmy makes a comment about not caring about Hermes' happiness regarding Joel's Sheriff toys for sale, many of those fans quickly grow defensive of Hermes and start to jokingly hate on Jimmy's character as a result.
Epileptic Trees: In Season 2, plenty of theories have been made in both social media posts and the YouTube comments sections of episodes, most commonly about the characters' backstories.
A recurring Tumblr crack theory throughout the early days of the season is the "Oli All Along" theory, where TheOrionSound is somehow responsible for everything mysterious that happens on the server, especially the bad things. This turns out to have basis in reality when it's revealed that his character settled the Empires world and killed the Ender Dragon before everyone else arrived on the server.
As Lizzie explains her origins and true identity, it is highly suspected that she is descended from members of the Lost Empire (e.g. the Tiger Blood Prince) from Season 1, as it's believed that the claim of her jungle-cat ancestors being "trapped in cages and forced to wear silly outfits" by the human that ruled over them "once upon a time" eerily echoes the situation in the Lost Empire. She later also makes a reference to "the Jungle Empire of ages past", further supporting this theory.
While Season 2 Scott was initially imagined to be a jester-type character, from the backstory hints given in his fourth episode, common speculation goes that he used to be part of a travelling circus (for llamas and acrobatic ability) and was cursed by a witch. So far, the circus part has been jossed, but the witch encounter is still arguably up for grabs.
After Sausage's Origins Episode, it's widely speculated that Sausage is the Heroic Bastard of the tyrant-king, mainly due to him having a Disappeared Dad, his mother working at the castle, said tyrant-king bearing physical resemblance to Sausage, and Eddie emphasizing Sausage's need to flee during the Night of the Great Purge. Confirmed in his perspective of the finale.
As for a non-backstory speculation, the discovery of a purple cavern near the Greatbridge, decorated with amethyst crystals, has been strongly suspected to be somehow related to the Rift from Hermitcraft Season 9, at least in appearance. Those fans were proven correct around the time of the Festival of the Rift on Hermitcraft's end, as it's revealed that Grian was the one who sent the message received by the Empires rulers, but the message the Empires rulers sent back had its letters jumbled up while passing through the portal. This ultimately culminates into a crossover arc between the two series.
Esoteric Happy Ending: For Season 1, in a twisted sense (due to the season already having a mostly-Downer Ending) and only applicable with a dose of Fridge Horror. There are some fans who believe Scott's Personalized Afterlife to be more of a Hell of a Heaven because of A) his Heroic Sacrifice failing in its purpose in saving his friends and him being dead not knowing everyone else having a Bittersweet Ending at best, and/or B) him knowing the alternate world isn't really what he experienced and thus never properly receiving closure for what's implied to be half a lifetime of trauma. There are plenty of fanfics that address this — usually for angsty reasons, and for the latter case, several fanfic writers are merciful enough to send other characters from the original Empires world to the same afterlife-continuity (logistical reasons aside), or at least write the afterlife-incarnations of various characters to be understanding towards his circumstances.
As a whole, since most of the characters share their names with their content creator counterparts, they are differentiated with the character (c!) and content creator (cc!) prefix tags, respectively. This phenomenon has its roots in the Dream SMP fandom (which has an infamously Darker and Edgier plotline covering serious and sensitive topics like abuse), where fans started to add roleplay tags like these to avoid confusion between characters and content creators, and most likely spread to the Empires fandom via fandom overlap and osmosis. An alternative to the character (c!) prefix tag in this fandom is the Empires prefix tag (e!).
Dark Sausage is often nicknamed "Bratwurst" or "Sausage Supreme". Even 'Dark Sausage' itself is a nickname, as the character doesn't have a consistent canon name that differentiates him from regular-Sausage.
In Season 2, Pirate Joe is sometimes called "Birate Joe" for being confirmed by Word of God to be bi.
As of Season 2, many members of Jimmy's chat call him "Tiny Tim" as a result of a livestream bit where Joel uses a splash potion to turn him small briefly. This becomes an Ascended Fan Nickname just over 24 hours after the nickname's debut when Joel includes the nickname in his episode title.
With both the Hermitcraft and Life SMP fandoms. For Hermitcraft, it's thanks to both Gem and Pearl, who are members of Hermitcraft while Pixlriffs is a member of the Hermitcraft recap. For Life SMP, it's because Pearl, Scott, Joel, Jimmy and Lizzie were members of the Life series as well, while most of the other members of the Life series are Hermits. Additionally, almost all of the Empires members have teamed with the Hermits and other Life SMP members in the Minecraft Championship.
Hermitcraft member and creator of Life SMP Grian also got a tour of Empires SMP.
The status with Hermitcraft carries on in Season 2, with False replacing Pearl as the resident Hermit apart from Gem.
This goes even further with a crossover between both SMPs where 13 members of Hermitcraft S9 venture to Empires S2.
Correlated to the above, the Dream SMP fandom, which is also a Minecraft roleplay series that seriously took off in the early 2020s. Both series take their roleplay very seriously, but the style of the roleplays are often compared and contrasted for comedic purposes, with Empires taking on a light-hearted high-fantasy aesthetic and the Dream SMP veering off in the complete opposite direction.note This can be demonstrated through the fact that both series have characters being sent to a Personalized Afterlife, but while the one in Empires is shown to be an idealized alternate universe (or at least, Scott made it one), the one for the DSMP is more of a personalized hell.
Also with Afterlife SMP, due to creator overlap (read: 10/15 of the ALSMP cast are returning members of Empires Season 1), ALSMP being the successor series to Empires Season 1 in terms of creator uploading schedules (for the overlapping creators), and the manyCompany Cross References in ALSMP to Empires. Ultimately, the series receives Canon Welding to Season 2 courtesy of Oli and to Season 1 through Pearl and Sausage.
And with the WitchCraft SMP, due to creator overlap: 3 of the 8 main cast members are Empires creators (Joey, Scott, and Shelby), and Prismarina is a well-known fan theorist for Empires, especially for Season 2.
Genius Bonus: In the Season 2 Hermitcraft crossover, being a massive Disney nerd in real life, Scar has snuck a lot of Disney and Pixar references into his Tumble Town builds to carry on the "Jimmy is a toy" running joke. Naming his train "the Luxo Express" after the Pixar lamp is only one of many instances of this.
Heartwarming Moments: The reunion of Team Rancher during S2's crossover with the Hermitcraft server. Seeing Jimmy and Tango jumping, squealing and blowing horns in celebration at seeing one another again is adorable as many a fan can attest to.
Hilarious in Hindsight: Apparently, any Empires ruler who gains a god-like status after the season becomes a Hermit. Just ask Pearl (who was venerated as St. Pearl and joined Hermitcraft S8) and Joel (who became a Lore God and joined Hermitcraft S10).
Ho Yay: There are enough examples for this to be relegated to its own page.
Idiosyncratic Ship Naming: Largely platonic variants, since shipping tends to be a touchy subject in the MCYT fanbase as a whole (unless it's canonical to the lore).
Arena Duo (Pearl and Sausage). Called this as they constructed a battle arena together in Season 1. This eventually carries across to Season 2 as Sausage continues to have a posthumous connection to Pearl, even in-universe.
Fairytale Trio (Joey, Katherine, and Shelby). Called this as they embody common fairy-tale role archetypes in Season 2 — a pirate, a princess, and a witch, respectively.
Flower Husbands (Jimmy and Scott). A carry-over from the 3rd Life SMP, called this for settling in a Flower Forest biome together and being married in-universe, which later crosses over into a Reincarnation Romance in Empires Season 1.
Nature Wives (Katherine and Shelby). Called this as their respective empires in Season 1 are both nature-themed — the floral Overgrown/House Blossom and the fungal Undergrove, respectively, and their characters being commonly shipped together.
Both the Roseblings (fWhip and Gem) and the Seablings (Jimmy and Lizzie) dynamics started out as popular fan headcanons before becoming Ascended Fanon in Season 1. The 'Seablings' name is adopted into canon as well, but it's not confirmed for the Roseblings.note In terms of etymology, the 'Rose' part most likely refers to the Wither Rose Alliance, while the 'Sea' part notes on the two empires being aquatic in nature and puns on the word 'sibling' directly.
I Knew It!: Several fan theories were proven correct as of Season 2, including Oli being the 13th ruler and the Rift connecting the Empires world to Hermitcraft. In addition, since False is a Dimensional Traveler, there have been speculations from the start of the season that her home world is some iteration of Hermitcraft (due to creator overlap); these fans are proven correct during the crossover event.
Jerkass Woobie: Jimmy has had a track record of antagonizing half the server population in both seasons, but it's hard for fans to not to feel sorry for him — for having some fairly traumatic character lore in Season 1, and for being utterly pathetic in Season 2.
Launcher of a Thousand Ships: To a lesser extent than most fandoms, due to the greater Minecraft content creator fandoms' reservation on shipping characters based on real-life people, but it's still present.
Jimmy Solidarity, in both iterations, has been shipped with just about every other character he's interacted with every season, especially the guys. So far, the list includes and is not limited to Scott*probably the most canonical ship of Season 1 excluding Joel/Lizzie and one-sided Joey/Xornoth, and for the blatant flirting in Season 2, Sausage*for the canonical kiss and rivals-to-friends dynamic in Season 1, while Season 2 involves... Sausage being Sausage, fWhip*for the Foe Yay Shipping and questionably one-sided Ho Yay in Season 1, and for the Deputy drama and questionable "exes" claim in Season 2, Joel*due to their friendship and thus empires' alliance in Season 1, even though they're canonically in-laws; for Season 2, it's a case of Foe Yay Shipping followed by literally having a child together, Pix*in Season 1 only, for being friends and allies with each other, Joey*in Season 2 only, for the one-sided flirting; Joey escaped the 'Harem' in Season 1 due to having the hots for Xornoth, Tango*for "Team Rancher" on Double Life being carried over to Season 2, and Scar*once again, with the Deputy business and the close friendship.
Sausage makes a case for himself in Season 2 for flirting or making questionable comments with just about half the cast, especially the guys; in the fan-madeRelationship Chart, he stands out for being at the heart of all the flirtation.
LGBT Fanbase: Much like the overall MCYT super-fandom, the Empires fanbase has a fairly large LGBTQ+ population. It helps that there's a fair amount of representation in the roleplay, alongside 5 of the 14 main content creators involved being openly LGBTQ+ themselves.
The Fishfuckers. ExplanationA universal name for any character that has had a romantic association with a fish. Prominent members include E1!Joel (who is married to axolotl-hybrid Lizzie), E1!Scott (who is questionably romantically involved with E1!Jimmy, the Codfather), E1!Sausage (who is also implied to have romantic feelings for E1!Jimmy), and Dream SMP's Wilbur Soot (who had sex and conceived a child with an actual salmon named Sally). Wilbur is the originator for this phrase, since that Sally plotline happened before Empires began, but the joke really took off in the Empires fandom — as evidenced by this video (though this is based on a Mondegreen, as the song is "Sexy Bitch", not "Sexy Fish").
After he saved Scott from getting kidnapped and tortured in Season 1, Scott decided to repay Jimmy by taking him on a date, with very obvious romantic intent. However, Jimmy omitted any and all references to the date being romantic from his point of view (made even more obvious by the fact that Jimmy lost his side of the footage and had to use Scott's), sparking plenty of jokes about Scott getting ally-zoned, historians referring to them as allies or friends, or Flower Husbands only being canon in the Elvish dub.
The Chart. ExplanationA chart by Twitter user Sgorby infamously documenting the flirtfest which is the Empires Season 2 server, with the Hermitcraft crossover thrown into the mix later on, which is... truly something to behold (link correct to January 6th, 2023). cc!Sausage has been aware of this chart's existence since its earlier stages, and is strongly hinted to be actively making Sgorby's life more difficult by flirting with more people on video for them to document. cc!Jimmy has since also been made aware of the chart's existence, and by extension, all the other content creators, to Sgorby's mortification.
Misaimed Fandom: While most viewers are aware that Empires is all roleplay, a small subset of fans do not. These fans would openly send hate to the content creators playing evil characters, especially Joey and Sausage in Season 1, the latter of which decided to stop playing a villain in response to this backlash. Scott later said on stream that he's had this issue before with earlier series where he's played a villain (namely the X Life SMP and Kingdomcraft), but managed to dodge it this time by playing Xornoth, a separate character on a different Minecraft account who is not immediately recognizable as being played by Scott due to the voice changer. In Season 2, Joel explicitly attempts to prevent this by adding a disclaimer before his episode, stating that any and all content creators involved in roleplayed plotlines are fine with the in-game destruction in real life.
Oli beating the Ender Dragon before the series began. While he had guidance from KryticZeuz on how to get to the End in the first place, the Dragon fight was all Oli.
The sheer scale of the pranks pulled on various members of the server, from Pix boxing Joel's builds in a glass case (of about 3 Shulker-boxes' worth of glass) for building with calcite stolen from his territory, complete with a sign informing visitors that the calcite in question was "Taken from Pix's Mountain", to Joel spending about 10 hoursconstructing Andy's wallpaper around half of Tumble Town in retaliation to a misinterpreted prank.
Lizzie taking on a literal Warden to get her dress for the Princess Tea Party.
Hermes incapacitating Dark Sausage with his Shock and Awe powers.
Narm Charm: Empires is by no means a perfect series, both due to the members of the server not being professional actors, and the medium of Minecraft meaning that their characters can't even visibly emote. However, the occasional clunky acting adds a layer of humor to some scenes that sorely need it, and the lack of facial expressions are made up for with body language that can be surprisingly expressive.
The less said about the times Scott has apparently consumed llama spit thanks to Owen, the better.
While this technically takes place on the Hermitcraft server, the fact that Joel decorates one of his Christmas trees with severed mob heads.
Too Cool to Live: Season 1 Joel, the Mezalean King, is deemed to be this by his content creator counterpart. The fandom is at a loss to whether this is the case, though popular fanon goes that he's a Composite Character with his Season 2 counterpart.
Some fans interpret either fWhip or Gem to be trans because they're commonly portrayed in fan works as Half-Identical Twins. This is supported by cc!Gem saying that her character is the same height as fWhip's character, matching because they're twins (and fraternal twins are highly unlikely to have the same height).
Due to the Aerith and Bob situation with the Rivendellian siblings and a bit of inconsistent pronoun use in canon, it's fairly common to see fan-works depicting Xornoth to be on the non-binary spectrum and/or explicitly using they/them pronouns.
Most of the Season 2 POV characters have been commented by fans to be trans-coded in one way or another due to applicable experiences of faking their true identities/selves and being encouraged to live their true lives — Gem secretly being a Hermit and trying to keep her double life a secret (and her last episode being titled "The Transition"), Joel always claiming to be tall and strong and attractive (seen to be analogous to passing as one's true gender), Katherine being raised to be a Princess Classic while moonlighting as a Hunter of Monsters but still wanting her parents' approval, Lizzie faking being human and creating a "safe space" for those who are "like her", etc.
What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Yes, the Empires SMP is more family-friendly than some of its contemporary SMP series, with several of the content creators involved being PG. Of course, that is excluding the innuendoes and sexual jokes (mainly in Season 2), a literal torture scene (albeit within Minecraft limitations), Season 1 ending with a suicide, one of the Season 2 characters being all but outright stated to be a Child by Rape (or Questionable Consent at best, which is mostly glossed over)… you know, as all PG(-13) series do.
is only one of many instances of this.