Project Marblearth: Building a community-authored narrative.
What is Project Marblearth?
Project Marblearth is an independently community-organized initiative to expand the fictional narrative universe of Jelle’s Marble Runs, a YouTube channel that creates “marble sports” series such as the Marble League, Marble Rally, and Marbula One. The Project operates under a volunteer system of contributors and is a nonprofit, fully remote, and global organization. Our WordPress site, which hosts our blog articles, visual content, and other creations, is run without any monetization and exists to provide the community with one place on the Internet to access every release.
The purposes of Project Marblearth are:
- To collaborate creatively within the online marble sports community
- To bring fictional stories to life about how marble athletes get into sports and become the best versions of themselves through their training
The organization of Project Marblearth shall operate under these principles:
- Project Marblearth will exist as a safe space for fans to share community creations
- Project Marblearth will remain independent of association, affiliation, and organizational influence from Jelle’s Marble Runs
What is the JMR Expanded Universe?
The stories of the JMR Expanded Universe constitute a fictional narrative that ties into the events of Jelle’s Marble Runs, a YouTube channel showcasing marble runs and marble sports tournaments set in an expanded universe. The world of Marblearth, where the events of the expanded universe occur, is set in a separate universe sans the existence of humans. This universe, the “marbleverse”, is a reality where readers can draw connections to the world we live in, with the understanding that the events of human history never occurred.
The focus of the JMR Expanded Universe is to bring stories to life about how marble athletes get into sports and become the best versions of themselves through their training. That story has the best implication for our human world: if you’re passionate about something and give it your all, you will achieve your goals and be the best you can be.
Who works on the JMR Expanded Universe?
The JMR Expanded Universe is the culmination of the marble sports community’s suggestions and support. Project Marblearth is a team effort within the community to adapt meaningful stories written by the community and is inspired by precedent: fan team contest winners who saw their teams debut in the Marble League Showdown and stories incorporated with other teams’; authors working on The Rollout who created narratives that could have fit into the canon at the time; fans who joked about friendships, rivalries, and memes to the point where they became reasons to root for a team; social media managers who began running fan accounts to promote their favorite athletes and engage with fans outside of the hardcore community; and the former Jelle’s Marble Runs Committee’s Project Canon initiative, spearheaded by users Mellacus, Novawolf, and Stynth, that gave every Marble League team the same attention to detail in telling their stories.
Contributors who create, design for, and support Project Marblearth are a part of the team effort that helps build the community-authored narratives that expand the universe of Marblearth. Members serving on the Editorial Board ensure that Project Marblearth can be a safe space for fans to share artwork, stories, and other creative content by engaging with contributors to supervise their progress and collaborate when desired or needed.
Each member must agree to and follow the regulations within the Project Marblearth Charter to participate in the initiative. The Charter is publicly viewable at the bottom of this page.
What is the current goal of Project Marblearth?
Project Marblearth operates under a system of “phases”, which focus on developing specific areas of lore at a time.
The goal of Phase 1 was to update every existing RetRollSpective, articles that reflect on the history of JMR teams, up to the 2021 Marble League Qualifiers. For each team, a RetRollSpective includes their origin story, history of competing in JMR tournaments, and activity during the offseason: providing world-building, performance analysis, and characterization in a long-form prose feature article. This goal was achieved on 21 December 2021 with the help of 16 writers, 7 editors, 14 designers, and you, the amazing fans that you are.
The goal of Phase 2 is to introduce the stories of the Marble Rally athletes to the JMR Expanded Universe through a new series of blogs. The purpose of the “Choose Your Marble” series is to document and represent the stories of the individual athletes that participate in Jelle’s Marble Runs, within a defined word limit for every article written. Although the primary focus of these articles and this phase is on the athletes competing in the Marble Rally, other narratives will be introduced during Phase 2 as well, including the stories of teams that formerly competed in Jelle’s Marble Runs, the new teams introduced in MarbleManiaX, and other feature articles.
Is Project Marblearth officially associated with JMR?
Project Marblearth is neither publicly nor privately affiliated with JMR, and operates independently as a community-organized initiative. The narratives of the JMR Expanded Universe are designed to complement, not supplement, the events of JMR videos. Any questions about Project Marblearth should be directed to projectmarblearth@gmail.com.
Project Marblearth 