Unwritten

Raindrops compose an ostinato of soft pattering on my window as I sit on the edge of my seat, typing a piece I’ve been meaning to write and struggling to find words for. After publishing over 200,000 words with Project Marblearth in nearly two years, it’s ironic that I’m still figuring out how to express my feelings about the five years I have been part of the Jelle’s Marble Runs community.

Five years ago today, one of my friends messaged me about needing to watch a video they had found reposted on social media. That video could have been about anything, but me, them, and a few other friends huddled around our television later that night to watch what turned out to be the 500-Foot Sand Marble Rally Race. My friends and I were quickly captivated. Greg Woods commentated with so much confidence and excitement that it was impossible not to get invested in watching athletes rush down the expertly-crafted sand track. The athletes themselves performed exceptionally: Comet clawing back their lead from Tarantula, Pollo Loco striding on and off the podium, and even Snake’s Tub’s restart to finish the race in 27th, showed a determination that was inspiring to someone who had been an outsider to sports all their life.

My parents wanted me to be interested in sports at a young age, signing me up for baseball, soccer, basketball, flag football, and other community sports. They tried to get me involved, hoping I would find something I enjoyed and stick with that. I never did. I have vivid memories of lingering on the outsides of each possession, seldom getting close to doing anything significant. It became clear to me when I started playing around with keyboards in storefronts, that music would be the passion in my life sports weren’t. My parents started supporting me from the start, signing me up for piano lessons, attending annual recitals, band competitions, and choir concerts, and motivating me to express myself and have fun in what became my primary hobby growing up. Still, there’s a part of me that wonders if they wished I had been more interested in athletics. Until that night five years ago, I hadn’t wished the same and could have never imagined being into sports.

That all changed after my friends and I watched the 500 Foot Race. As we looked through more videos from Jelle’s Marble Runs, we discovered Marble League 2017 Event 11, which featured athletes on teams competing in an underwater race. I learned by watching the rest of Marble League 2017 that the O’rangers, who set a world record in that race, made an impressive comeback from earlier in the League to win the tournament over the reigning championship team, the Savage Speeders. Mellow Yellow held on to third place over the rookie Midnight Wisps, who made an impressive comeback after accidentally injuring an athlete from another team. That team, known as Team Momo, recruited a reserve to compete with them in their injured team member’s place, demonstrating a pure determination to push through that injury and keep competing. Of all sixteen teams, Team Momo’s narrative stood out as profound and led to me becoming a fan of the team, Jelle’s Marble Runs, and marble sports overall.

Barely one day later, I found one of our community subreddits and made a post introducing myself, my “depression” over Team Momo getting injured, and my excitement for Marble League 2018. The rest, as they say, is history. I spent my earliest days working with MSPN and moderating our community subreddits, then working with the former Jelle’s Marble Runs Committee as one of its first members to bridge the connection between the channel and its fans. More recently, I mixed and mastered the voices of the a cappella group, Time Check, to model cheering chants for the Marble League and facilitated everything achieved through Project Marblearth, including dozens of RetRollSpectives and addenda, Feature Articles, and the newly released Marble Memos. Throughout these five years, I have constantly been creating content to share within the Jelle’s Marble Runs community that developed from a growing passion for marble sports.

What’s in five years? Five Marble Leagues, three Marble Rallies and Marbula One seasons, tournaments from the Amazing Maze Marble Race to Last Marble Standing, unlimited memories that accompany half of a decade of sports events, and the growth of a place as vibrant and passionate as the JMR community. I have been lucky to participate in this community over these five years, to the point where it serves as a constant against personal life experiences that, until now, I’ve left unsaid. In this retrospective, I aim to link these experiences with my experience within the JMR community.

In five years, I’ve built social connections with strangers, peers, mentors, acquaintances, friends, family, and lovers. Not all of these lasted. Strangers, friends, and family drifted away as relationships fell through during rough moments. When it felt like there was nothing but me; the low drone of my laptop running; the ostinato of midnight rain; my infrequent scrolling and typing; my occasionally unreasonable, intrusive, and stressful thoughts – life was isolating and scary. I have learned to treasure the social connections I once had and currently have. Establishing and maintaining my support system reminds me that I am not alone. That reminder gives me the courage to keep on pushing and become who I’ve always wanted to be.

It’s cool to know others like me who have a quirky obsession with marble sports. I’ve been grateful to establish connections with users from The Marblebase Discord to r/JellesMarbleRuns and collaborate with some more closely on committees like the former JMRC and teams within our network of Project Marblearth Contributors. I’ve been humbled to be invited as a special guest on fans’ podcasts, interviewed for fans’ publications, and featured in voicework for videos. While it is sad that our community, beyond what we type into our keyboards and dictate into our microphones, isn’t tangible, I consider it a gift that we can be connected no matter the lengths between us. Our support system, like mine, reminds us that we are not alone and gives us the courage to express ourselves.

I’ve moved multiple times in five years: with my family, alone to college, and into my apartment. Despite having moved earlier in my life, leaving places where I’ve become comfortable calling my home has never gotten easier. However, I have realized that home can be a flexible concept. Home can be a mindset of comfort, not defined by physical boundaries. Home can be wherever I’m with my friends and wherever I’m happy with myself. Home can be places I’ve been, where I’ve learned to build something bigger than myself, and home can constantly be in a state of becoming places: the places where I will become who I’ve always wanted to be.

Despite its intangibility, I’m happy to refer to the JMR community as an “online home” of mine; a place where I feel comfortable with myself and my friends while I work to build something greater than myself. As with all homes, this feeling can be flexible, too. There are moments when this home can feel discomforting, where I and others have made the common mistake of wielding our outbursts like a sword and silence as a shield. Miscommunication is the kryptonite that bejewels our conflicts, so if we can all do something to make this community feel as much like a home as possible, we should aim to be courteous and wise about the words we share. Although we should feel comfortable expressing ourselves, not everything needs to be said, especially if others feel uncomfortable because of our common mistakes.

In five years, I’ve participated in various music ensembles that taught me how to work with others with whom I share a passion for the arts and creativity. As Time Check’s Assistant Director, during a year when we could not sing together in the same room, I learned how to pursue our best musicianship virtually, assembling complex arrangements for our spring concert, “Begin Again.” Keeping music in my life throughout college while pursuing a liberal arts degree led me to realize that I wanted to pursue my passion as a professional career. Within my uniquely challenging senior year, I applied to one of the best colleges for music in the world, auditioned, and was accepted, transferring after receiving my liberal arts degree in May 2021. Over four semesters pursuing a Bachelor of Music degree in contemporary writing and production, I have learned invaluable lessons that have helped me become a musician who can use my voice to inspire positive change in the world.

When the JMR community feels like home, it becomes a holy ground for fans to share their passion and creativity and inspire others to join them. If you had told me five years ago that I would write tens of thousands of words about JMR, I would have called you crazy. What could happen if someone wrote a series of interconnected narratives about the strongest sports personalities on Marblearth? Five years of chronicling the origin stories of those personalities have led me to realize the lore of Jelle’s Marble Runs, adapting stories around what I’ve discovered.

Granted, I can’t take sole credit for any of the stories I’ve adapted. Below is an incomplete list of those who have shaped our creative voice for the world of Marblearth. All these fans and more have realized the lore beyond what I, writing alone, could have created. They also taught me invaluable lessons that helped me become a writer who can use my voice to inspire positive change in the world.

• Members associated with MSPN, among them Hershy, BobTheGreat, ExcitingPresentation, Lego, Phi, RandomTonio
• Members of the former JMRC, among them Alayjo, Betawolfs, DarkArchon, Flare, Foucaulf, Gee, Ghost, Little Mighty, Mellacus, Mesp, Minty, Pax, Novawolf, Smacg13, Spex, Shino, Valencia Parker
• Members of the Jelle’s Marble Association, among them The Emperor, MerlinMarble, Orbitball
• Project Marblearth Contributors, among them B.J.V., Edu G.J., Ghostly, Nonagon, NordiqueWhaler, Laurent Rollon, Pastelle, Pesky, Phoenix, Piney, PippinPlover, Ramen Powder, Toffeeshop, Vector
• Fan Team Contest winners
• The Rollout authors
• Fan account managers, among them ghostDM, Havoc, Skyfall, Term
• Community event coordinators, moderators, and admins
• All users who bring their personalities, power rankings, jokes, analyses, reports, films, illustrations, and opinions to shape characteristics of teams, their fanbases, and the larger community

Furthermore, it would be impossible for anything we’ve created in the community to take root without those working with JMR Staff, among them: Tim Ritz, whose brand kits have given teams stronger visual identities, Greg Woods, whose expert commentary breathes life into every moment of competition, and Jelle Bakker, whose vision and passion for marble runs, races, and sports have become the defining characteristic that we embody as a community all too well.

In five years, I’ve been lucky to explore the world through my eyes, escaping my comfort zone and learning to be fearless during, among other adventures, eight months of studying abroad. Within that experience, I learned that traveling isn’t about what you see in the world – but how you see the world. This simple metaphor has become a mantra for how I journey through life and aim to tell stories through my writing.

It is a privilege to travel across “the world of Marblearth” and report based on how we experience our adventures. Together, we’ve braved the frigid cold of Glidavik to chronicle the Gliding Glaciers and sailed the tides of the Seven Seas to visit the Oceanics. We’ve unearthed the mines of Ionise for the return of Team Plasma and raced down sand hills to count the Rojo Rollers and uncover the legend of Red Number 3. We’ve glanced upon the lakes, still as marble statues, as Speedy and Red Eye converse, attended tense coach conferences questioning official rulings, and celebrated the highest glory when athletes achieved the championships they sought. We’ve told many stories through our travels, with many more we hope to share.

And yet, many stories are better left unwritten. The words we share as Project Marblearth complement, not supplement, what occurs in JMR and what fans interpret as their headcanon of those events. In five years of participating in this community, I have been astounded to the degree that narratives write themselves, leading the community lore to unfold naturally. What is in writing already exists as the base of our community, where we embody Jelle’s vision and passion and inspire others to create with us. What is left unwritten ​​drifts into the haze, surrounding a misty mountain with nothing and everything that could be possible but would be best left to our imagination.

I wouldn’t trade five years in our community for any time in any other space on the Internet. It is hard to imagine an alternate outcome where I would have finally learned how to appreciate the value of sports, what it means to be part of a passionate fanbase, why we create stories, and who I want to become. Who do I want to become? Someone who not only wants to write “Songs That You Need To Hear” but communicate compelling “Stories That You Need To Hear,” connecting us not simply within a community…but as if we’re home.

The ostinato of midnight rain has faded and dried amidst a brisk, cloudy afternoon as I recline in my chair, reviewing and revising the 2,000 words that compose this article. The rhythm of this retrospective swirls with waves that crescendo and diminuendo like those off the coast of Dunduei, bends with phrases that hang legato over community experiences and personal details like the dunes beyond Felynia, and journeys with a mystery that blurs the boundary between what we read and what we believe, as we do every time we reflect on the history of marble athletes, and in turn, reflect on our lives. 

I look up ahead and see the sun shining. Now that I’ve figured out how to express my feelings about the five years I have been part of the Jelle’s Marble Runs community, what’s next? Well, I imagine I’ll keep on rolling.

To Fouc, for proofreading this retrospective
To you, the amazing fans that you are
We keep on

Credits

• Writer: Stynth
• Editor: Fouc
• Graphic Designer: Stynth
• Release: 07/12/2022