The Homeschoolers Aggregate

HSA: The Immersive Fiction Game

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Website:The Homeschoolers Aggregate
We play by the rules. And yet information wants to be free.

Image of the HSA website

HomeSchoolers Aggregate Online is a fan creation that began in October 2006 with some short, text based “advertisements” for an online program for home schooled students. The videos shared the strict rules that participants need to follow in order to remain in the program. Many viewers questioned the relationship of these videos and the HSA website to the Lonelygirl15 production. Fans soon realized that the videos and site were an independent production that ran parallel to Bree’s story. Some viewers speculated that Bree was a former participant of the program due to HSA's strict policies. Others speculated that it was a cult, trying to lure students to enroll. As it turned out, HSA was a game that followed the idea of immersive fiction more that a traditional ARG. The HSA offered no dead-drops or computer codes to break. To participate in HSA, students need to register by the deadline and complete written tasks that often help them find the password to the class notebook, a password-protected message forum. Since HSA discourages students from interacting or socializing, the message forum is the place where students leave the answers to their “assignments.” Assignments range from replying to philosophical theories, making personal connections to philosophical ideas, responding to specific pieces of art, and even creating and sharing one’s own art work.

Students find the assignments posted on the website. Videos either reinforce a lesson’s focus, provide insight to an area of examination or offer clues to the participants to figure out the assignment’s password. At HSA, when students solve the password and are ready to post their answer in the notebook, they are said to “Bring It” to the notebook. Students who are interested are free to post their own in-character blogs that link off the HSA website.

The head of school is a woman known as Rose Marie Crandall Crowley Kelly, who is married to Phillip Crowley (no relation to Aleister). She is a very strict, yet supportive instructor who encourages her students to do their best. She expects students to follow her rules without question, and those who have questioned her have had their IP addresses banned from the site. Assignments receive responses from Ms. Kelly and student work is exhibited on the website.

Throughout each term, a back story emerges involving Ms. Kelly’s exploits and those who seem to trying to undo for reasons that remain unclear. The website offers clues, additional character blogs and links. At the end of the term, students are treated to a graduation ceremony video, an on-line yearbook and a certificate of completion. HSA has a small group of followers who seem to enjoy the intellectual stimulation of this game.

This is the first time that HSA’s creator has ever been involved in such a pursuit. Participants have been forgiving and patient as her stories unfold and her skills improve.

For an explanation of this game for potential participants, see How to Play: HSA<ref>How to Play: HSA</ref> from the HSAO website.

HSA: On the Lonelygirl15 Forum

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The Homeschoolers Aggregate appears to be a secular forum for gifted homeschoolers to receive informal assignments in and to discuss Literary Theory, Poetry, Art, and Moral and Ethical Philosophy. Whether the Aggregate is an accredited institution, and whether it supports other subjects outside the liberal arts, is unknown.

Internet fans of Bree stumbled across the HSAOnline introductory and training videos hosted on YouTube. The source of the lonelyfans' speculation that Bree is/was a student of the Homeschoolers Aggregate is unknown, but several participants of the Tribute to Lonelygirl15 Phorum flocked to register in a new session to be administered by HSAOnline's strict but supportive educator, Ms. Kelly, who continually exhorts the students to "Study up!"

Ms. Kelly and the HSAOnline administrators seem very solicitous regarding the online privacy of their student families. HSAOnline appears to be recovering from some sort of major recent hack, based on some oblique comments from Ms. Kelly.

Many of the new HSAOnline students, like many of the fans of the lonelygirl15-inspired internet game cassieiswatching, use Bukanator's forum as a secondary clubhouse to discuss the mysterious Aggregate.

Characters Often used to symbolize Ms. Kelly's relationship to fire, "Burn" is a piece by artist Kara Walker Teachers and Administrators Ms. Kelly's YouTube Channel & HSA videos on Revver --Ms. Kelly, the bright, stoic and opinionated head of HSA, spends much of her time focused on the importance of structure, order and education. For reasons that have yet to be made clear, Ms. Kelly seems to be a target for sinister people who bring trouble her way. While very supportive of her students, she is very judgmental about situations that she feels lead to immortal student behavior. TWJaniak -- The former site adminstrator on the forum, notable among the lonelyfans as the creator of a series of videos giving advice to Bree and Daniel on their growing relationship. Ms Kelly invited Mr. Janiak to be a guest speaker for the new course. TW produced a video on the topic of Truth in Friendship for the orientation class. For many Orientation 2006 students, he was viewed as a guest instructor, who offered wisdom and guidance. Professor Cedric Boone -- A professor who joined Ms. Kelly for the term in 2006. He provides help and additional instruction to students. He is also involved in what appears to be some covert work for TiKO Foundation. Notable Students to Date: taiya -- a lonelyfan puzzle solver, likely to become a star pupil in Ms Kelly's course due to her prowess with the Registration Problem. Josh -- a potential student who was briefly shunned for spoofing Ms Kelly in guestbook comments; Ms Kelly unblocked Josh before the end of Registration. Josh was subsequently blocked again for telling Ms. Kelly that he couldn't complete his assignments because he had "a life." This "life" has been made clearly evident by Josh's 3652 (and counting) forum posts. JoannaChildsface -- a lonelyfan who can be counted on for keeping students updated on Guestbook Gossip and other mysteries of HSAOnline. Violet -- a current student who corresponds with former student Lyn Mayati -- Marisa or Meritmenat Byrne, a current student who appears to reside in a different time zone from most of the HSA students. Mayati describes herself as a 17 year old girl who attends a very small school and who has religious and work chores which take up much of her time. She has hinted that she practices a minority religion which incorporates Kemetic elements, and she may have known Bree when both girls were younger. Truth_n_sc -- a new friend who helps Lyn by offering supportive suggestions and comments to her blog entries KT- As the student who has been enrolled the longest at HSA, KT is the student who convinced Ms. Kelly to allow students to socialize. In her interactions with HSA staff, KT once used the colloquial phrase “drop the ball.” The acting director students, the incompetent Dean Warren Reed, assumed KT was an events planner and refused her services. He often asked her if she would send back any deposits from HSA because he would not approve of a ball or dance at the school. KT is not an events planner; however, she is a bright, motivated student whose work demonstrates why Ms. Kelly has grown fond of her. MysteriousC- Perhaps the youngest student at HSA, MysteriousC has been enrolled for several terms. Notable, she often had difficulty with the class notebook passwords. In the history of HSA, she is the only student who was given the password through email by Ms. Kelly. Because she was so earnest in her studies, Ms. Kelly was willing to make this exception. Sister, who is otherwise known as GuillotineCalamity, enrolled in HSA for a short time, but had to withdraw when faced with a more pressing personal matter. As a participant in the HSA Term graduation in 2006, Sister shared a congratulatory video with her former classmates. Rumored Former Students: Lyn -- a former student who seems to have been expelled from HSA. She broke Ms. Kelly's rule about contacting classmates. She and her mother, Ms. Kelly's former employee, have recently moved away from their old town, and currently reside in an unnamed town with Lyn's grandmother. Lyn stresses that she was not involved in any of the recent problems facing HSA. Bree- HSA has never been acknowledged by Bree or any official lg15 character. Although she openly refuses to address the rumors of Bree’s alleged participation, Ms. Kelly has responded to the lonelygirl15 story in light of her students’ interest in Bree’s life. Referring to her as “your peer Bree,” Ms. Kelly often uses Bree’s exploits as the basis for lesson on such topics as appropriate behavior, proper decision-making and the negative consequences of an unstructured life. Ms. Kelly’s “Lessons from Bree” videos usually focus on insignificant and trivial elements in the episodes such as Bree’s wardrobe, perceived immorality, Jonas’s automobiles and the use of profanity in a few videos. Ms. Kelly’s tone is often harsh and sarcastic, and she rarely offers reasonable suggestions that could actually help Bree. Ms. Kelly has offered praise to Bree, Daniel and Jonas on several occasions when they have made decisions that Ms. Kelly found to be appropriate. The End of Orientation 2006 HSA Certificate of completion Orientation 2006 ended with a rousing speech by LordGreystoke422 entitled HSAO: What is Reality. This 18 minute and 48 second video ended the term with a presentation that they were not expecting. "It has been suggested that this was the longest graduation speech in history. Though long it is actually exceeded by others such as a noted 24 minute graduation speech once given by Warren Beatty, it is definitely the longest in HSAO history and may be one of the only Graduation speeches involving the removal of clothing." <ref>LordGreystoke422</ref> Graduates who completed the necessary assignments were issued diplomas and were treated to HSAO online yearbooks. The graduates were as follows: Alystra Amy#2 Blair D.Kimble Faith Joanna Childsface Josh Kevin Seige Summer*KT Taiya Violet Disorientation 2006 For a short period, HSAO's director, Ms. Kelly, was institutionalized for reasons that are unclear but vaguely addressed in a video entitled Rose Kelly. There was some speculation as to whether Ms. Kelly suffered from spontaneous combustions. During this period, students were invited along on a train trip by a mysterious host/architect. This train ride turned into a surrealistic and confusing journey that led guests nowhere. Although the lounge, library and drawing room art offered much to occupy the travelers, there was little else to do but watch as guests became frustrated with the host and left one by one. Ms. Kelly jumped off of the train part way through the trip to get back to her family, her school and the consequences she faced for some fraudulent behavior. She vowed to turn things around and applied for 501(c)(3) nonprofit status for her school. Back at the helm, she began planning a new term for her students focused on technology and art. Term 2006 Students spent the term focused on examining technology and art, as well as learning from the examples set by lonelygirl15 in a series of lessons entitled Lesson from Bree. HSA became sponsored by a charitable foundation called TiKO. This foundation is rather mysterious as its sponsors choose to remain anonymous and work under the TiKO name. TiKO demanded that HSA hold a very public Open House so the sponsors could see the work of the school. Some paperwork in Ms. Kelly’s office alluded to some conflict between TiKO’s intentions and Ms. Kelly’s curriculum. Professor Boone also seemed to doing some secretive work for TiKO as stated in some emailsfound on his site. Ms. Kelly explained to her current class that she was concerned about continued funding for her non-profit school. As graduation neared, Ms. Kelly solicited some of her friends to contribute their words of wisdom for the graduation video. Contributing friends included ApotheosisAZ, Dr.Immant, Jonas, Nikki Bower, TWJaniak, Simian Liberation Front, Sister and Daniel's friend Paul. Students’ final projects were displayed on the HSA website. The graduates were for this term were as follows:<ref>HSA Final Student Exhibition 2006</ref> "Faith (our dependable little spark) Joanna C. (so faithful and bright) rustydevil (whose enthusiasm was a pleasure) MysteriousC (whose gift of a ribbon left me red in the face) Fitzroy (who was no longer a stow-away, but instead an important part of our group) Ashley (who worked so hard and shared so much) KT (who convinced Ms. Kelly to loosen up a bit) Amy#2 (who is really #1 to Ms. Kelly) Momo (who came, shared and helped us grow) Jules (who I allow to remain) Luminous (who is just that) Blair (who is always level-headed and creative) Term 1 2007 HSA receives funding from anonymous sponsors through the TiKO Foundation Students were busy at work completing a variety of exercises and receiving help with class notebook passwords from Professor Boone. However, students noticed Ms. Kelly’s absence in responding to students about their class work. Professor Boone shared some information with students in the form of a notice. A video credited to The Executive Director of the TiKO Foundation explained some concern over Ms. Kelly’s last few video lessons, which seemed to be targeting Bree and her current situation. The video did not give specific information other than to say that Ms. Kelly needed to learn how to better serve her students. Along with the text, the video also showed firefighters battling a blazing building and an unknown man engaged in actions that appeared to be suspicious. Professor Cedric Boone, left to run the school in Ms. Kelly’s absence, discusses his concerns with the students. Suspicious of the sponsors, TiKO’s public relations video and Rose’s plight in the hands of these individuals, he leaves copies of sensitive material that he had delivered as his time as a go-between for TiKO and the sponsors, and posts a lesson involving pieces of art that allude to sinister behavior on the part of those holding Ms. Kelly. Surprisingly, a new video credited to HSA and TiKO is posted that includes a calm voicemail message from Ms. Kelly, who states that the seminar has “opened [her] eyes.” Professor Boone and the class are left to wonder if Ms. Kelly willfully joined forces with her captors or if she was influenced through more sinister means. Assignments Student responses to assignments are exhibited on the HSA website. These list poems, which are showcased as a response to an assignment, were created and submitted by students. Assignment 1--October 9, 2006 -First Orientation Assignment Assignment 2-- October 12, 2006 -Second Orientation Assignment Assignment 3--October 18, 2006 -Third Orientation Assignment Assignment 4- October 19, 2006 -Fourth Orientation Assignment Assignment 5- October 25, 2006 -Fifth Orientation Assignment Assignment 6- October 25, 2006 -Final Orientation Assignment Registration Task- November 23, 2006- First Academic Task of 2006 Term Open House Exhibition- Showcase of Student Work from 2006 Term Technology & Art Final Projects- Final Student Exhibition from 2006 Term Current Student Responses- On-Going Showcase of Student Work: 2007 References <references/> External Links HomeSchoolers Aggregate Online Homepage Professor Boone’s Classroom Ms. Kelly’s Video Collection on Revver Ms. Kelly’s YouTube Channel TiKO Foundation Homepage HSA discussion area for fan-created videos on the lonelygirl15 forum