Custom emojis is something that exists since already quite some time in the matrix ecosystem, thanks to an unofficial im.ponies.user_emotes extension to the spec. Unfortunately, element only support displaying these emojis and not sending them. But various other clients does support them: Nheko, Fluffychat, NeoChat, ...
Schildichat now supports rendering them, but not uploading them or reacting with them. It's a step forward. It also can embed videos from certain links.
Disclaimer: I'm one of the maintainer of NeoChat