Part Two: Where's that yellow brick road when you really need it Dorothy?
"Oof. Ouch. For cryin' out loud."
Mattie tumbled out of the gate on the other side of the wormhole and landed in an untidy heap at the bottom of the stone steps.
"Was that a 'gratuitous Colonel O'Neill quote'?" A voice demanded in a rather querulous tone.
Mattie looked up to see the System Lord Morrigan standing in front of her, hands on hips. She wore a black feather trimmed basque, tight black trousers and thigh length boots. The whole seductive nine yards. She was accompanied by what appeared to be a tiny version of Colonel O'Neill, but with large ears and two distinct horns poking through his baseball cap. He was carrying a clipboard and had a stubby, well-chewed pencil stuck behind one large ear.
Mattie blinked a number of times, held her head and groaned. This was just too much, even if it was a dream.
"O'Neil with one L, make a note of this. It should be added to this human's fanfic crime list". Morrigan commanded imperiously.
"You got it Lady M." O'Neil with one L piped enthusiastically. He pulled the pencil from behind his ear, licked the tip and started scribbling.
"What?" Exclaimed Mattie. She jumped up and started to brush the dust off her jeans. "No! Wait a minute. That wasn't a.a what you said. My dad always used to say it when I was a kid. Mom said it was his way of avoiding swearing in front of us."
Morrigan eyed her suspiciously. "Hmm, sounds like a blatant human lie to me, but since you have just arrived here, we will give you the benefit of the doubt. This time. However, one more even slightly 'gratuitous Colonel O'Neill quote' and it will go badly for you. We will show no mercy. You will suffer greatly!"
Her eyes glowed and her voice began to rise. Mattie stared in horrified disbelief as Morrigan prepared to go into full System Lord mode. It was only O'Neil with one L tugging at her sleeve that stopped her dead.
"What IS it?" She hissed. "And what have I told you about touching me without permission? You'll crush the feathers. And don't call me Lady M. Your Glory will suffice. Rather fitting for a Goddess don't you think?"
She arched her neck and preened.
"Oh give me strength." Said O'Neil with one L. "For a start, we're not allowed to torture the new students. At least not until they've registered and gone through kitting out and basic training. Then you know as well as I do that it's up to Ba'al as to how much torture gets meted out, what it'll be and who does it. It's always either him or Terak anyway. You already gave her the benefit of the doubt and you're supposed to greet her, not scare her to death. That's Ra's job."
"But I'm a Goa'uld System Lord. That's what I do." Said Morrigan in a plaintive voice.
"Oh for cryin, I mean, for heaven's sake!" O'Neil with an L corrected himself quickly. "You've been at the fanfics again haven't you? You know Miss S and her rules about staff reading the stories on the internet. She'll take your slave privileges away again."
"Oh very well." Said Morrigan crossly. "Give me the forms."
O'Neil with an L immediately produced some forms from his jacket pocket and handed them to her. Morrigan in turn handed them to Mattie with a flourish.
"Fill these out, read the information, sign the disclaimer and then go to the registration tent and they will process you."
Mattie stared at the forms in complete disbelief. They seemed to be some sort of medical form, a personal details form, a list of items and something which was a disclaimer of some kind. She opened her mouth to protest, but before she could utter a word, she was interrupted.
"OH FOR CRYIN' OUT LOUD! Holy Hannah, what is this flubbing crap?" Bellowed a voice. A body shot down the steps from the gate and lay groaning miserably at the bottom.
Morrigan's eyes glowed again. She straightened her shoulders, fluffed out the black feathers on her outfit and headed in the direction of the unwitting 'gratuitous Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter quote' offender with an evil smile on her face. She didn't often get a double gratuitous quote offender. Things were beginning to look up. O'Neil with one L started after her, but stopped when Mattie put her hand on his shoulder.
"What now?" He asked in a slightly irritable tone.
"Er. Pen? I haven't got a pen, to fill these out and then where do I go again?"
She felt a little helpless in the face of all these bizarre happenings, but since she was actually asleep, there seemed no harm in going along with it. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, she thought, mentally shrugging her shoulders.
O'Neil with one L sighed heavily and reached into another pocket. He handed her an even worse version of the chewed off pencil he was using.
"You just make sure I get that back Airman!" He said, his little fingers stabbing somewhere in the region of her knees. "US Air Force Issue. I have to account for these at the end of the month. Paperwork, I hate paperwork. First tent on the left is where you go when you've filled them in. As you were Airman."
With that, he scuttled off to where Morrigan was busy berating a confused looking girl of about twenty, who had a shock of unruly red hair and a pierced nose. She was dressed in black grunge style clothing.
Mattie looked around to see if there was something that she could rest on to fill out the forms. A short distance away, a group of three people were sat around a flat rock, which looked suspiciously like an altar of some description. They were laboriously filling out forms, all using stubby pencils of various lengths and decrepitude. One of them, a very young girl of about fourteen, was writing with her tongue sticking out, concentrating fiercely. Mattie approached them warily.
"Do you have room for one more down there?" She asked tentatively.
"Oh sure thing!" Said an older grey-haired woman cheerfully. She had a tee shirt on with Martouf 4 Ever on the back and Save Martouf emblazoned across the front. "I'm Martouf's Love Slave. What did they get you for?"
Mattie looked confused. "Get me? What do you mean?"
Martouf's Love Slave grinned and pointed at the sheaf of forms Mattie was holding.
"Your list of fanfic crimes. With the forms. It tells you what you did to get sent here! Mine are bad punctuation and spelling, unrealistic character portrayal, misspelling of character names, blatant Sam and Martouf shipping and failure to produce a realistic and believable Goa'uld enemy, among others."
Mattie looked at the forms and frowned. "I see. Ah, here it is. My list says unrealistic characterisation, lengthy infodump introductory paragraphs, inappropriate pairings, unrealistic and unreasonable enemy construction and mild Sam and Jack shipping. Oh, and also physical impossibilities, but not sexual, whatever that means."
A young woman with long dark hair and glasses looked up from filling out her forms.
"It means that you don't make them do things sexually that only a contortionist could do, but that you do make them do things like carry an injured person when they have a broken leg." She said helpfully. "My name is Daniellzgurl. Daniel whumping, Daniel and Jack comforting, over-use of the nickname 'Space-Monkey', inappropriate pairings and complete lack of realistic characterisation of all characters except Daniel, of course, who is wonderful. TWTID." Her eyes started to glaze over and a puddle of drool collected at one corner of her mouth. Martouf's Love Slave rolled her eyes and poked her in the arm. She jerked into the present. "Oops, sorry about that. I sort of drool a lot when Daniel is mentioned."
She held out her hand to Mattie who took it.
"How are you doing?" She said politely. "I'm Mattie."
Martouf's Love Slave immediately bristled.
"That's not Mattie meaning Martouf is it?" She demanded suspiciously. Daniellzgurl chuckled and shook her head.
"No of course not!" Protested Mattie, flushing. "It's my actual name. Mattie, short for Matilda, but I hate that name. So Mattie it is."
Her voice trailed off uncomfortably. So, there were insane people in her dream. Great. Just what she needed. A dream filled with System Lords, midget Jack O'Neills with horns and insane fans.
"Give it a rest Marty! You're probably going to meet a few rivals for Martouf here. No sense in getting bent out of shape every time you meet one." Said Daniellzgurl who was still laughing. "Take a pew Mattie and fill out your forms. Looks like the queue in the registration tent is thinning. We can all go in together."
Mattie grinned and sat down cross-legged in front of the stone slab. She spent the next ten minutes filling out medical information, including a part which asked her what her preferences were if she died during the course. She could be healed by the Tok'ra with a healing device, sent to Sickbay for Dr Frasier to deal with, sent to the Nox or put in a sarcophagus. She decided to opt for the Nox. The healing device didn't seem to work much with Daniel in Meridian and the Goa'uld were a big negative for her. Dr Frasier definitely wasn't an option. Too much hit and miss experimental medicine, not to mention shots. Mattie hated shots with a vengeance.
"Er. Course. What do they mean, course?" She asked.
Marty chuckled. "Didn't Morrigan tell you? This is the registration area for the Official Fanfic University for Stargate fanfic writers or OFUS. It's kind of like a boot camp cum university. We have to pass the course or never, ever write another Stargate fanfic as long as we live. It's all there on the back of the declaration anyway. We're here because we've all committed crimes against fanfic writing."
Mattie shuffled through the forms.
"Yeah, you're right, here it is. Thanks. Oh my god." She said, after she had read the blurb. "This is just screwy!"
"Is there room for a little one down there?" The red headed girl had escaped Morrigan and O'Neil with one L and was headed their way with her forms clutched in her hand.
"Of course." Mattie grinned up at her and shuffled around to make a space. "I'm Mattie."
"Hi." Said the girl brightly. "My name's ColonelSam."
"A Major Carter fan I take it?" Queried Daniellzgurl. "Chloe over there is a Sam fan too. Major shipper, not to mention a 'Samantha Carter as real life role model' perpetrator, major homonym use, gratuitous textspeak instead of proper English and complete lack of punctuation or paragraphs. Isn't that right Chloe? I'm Daniellzgurl and that's Martouf's Love Slave over there."
Chloe blushed furiously. She had a halo of short blonde curls and very blue eyes. Mattie hazarded a guess that it was meant to be a Sam Carter look that had gone slightly awry.
"Ooh yes." Cooed Chloe in a soft dreamy voice. "Sam is so wonderful. She's so clever and so beautiful. I'd love to be just like her."
"Oh crud." Groaned Marty making a barfing motion. "Someone gag her, she's off again. Once she starts she can't shut up."
"Aw leave her alone." Said ColonelSam protectively. She winked at Chloe who giggled. "There's nothing wrong with a kid seeking a role model and she could do a lot worse than Samantha Carter. I like Carter because she's gorgeous and sexy as well as strong and tough. She fights like a man and knows everything about wormhole physics. She's a better role model than dumb and dumber Jack."
Mattie's head reared up defensively. "Jack's not dumb and dumber. He just uses humour to make situations easier. He was the one who had the knowledge of the Ancients dumped into his brain, not Sam, and anyway, the Asgard said he was the next step on the evolutionary ladder!"
They all stared at her in amusement.
"So, no guesses as to which character you like then?" Asked Marty slyly.
Mattie blushed to the roots of her hair and bent over the forms. The declaration was quite simply stating that they would abide by the regulations of OFUS and should they fail the course, would promise, on pain of death and torture by Ba'al, Terak and/or any of the other System Lord Teaching Staff so instructed to carry out the sentence, that they would never venture to write another piece of Stargate fanfiction. Not even a filk, crossover or a drabble. So exactly how were they going to stop her? Thought Mattie sarcastically as she signed the declaration with a fine flourish. They'd have to catch her first and in any case, they were all just dream characters. She was going to wake up very soon.
A small Daniel with horns and big ears just like O'Neil with one L scurried over to them. He wore a huge badge in the shape of a pink heart with Cupid's arrow through it. On the badge his name read as 'Danyell'. Instead of a baseball cap, he wore a bandanna and the horns just peeked coyly at the edge of it. He pushed his glasses up his nose and glared at them in indignation.
"Not on the artefacts." He squeaked. "How many times do I have to tell Morrigan and O'Neil with one L not to let you students rest on the artefacts to fill your forms out? Shoo, shoo. There's a table over there, use that."
The group got to their feet and Danyell immediately hunkered down making soothing noises at the slab as though it was alive. He pulled out a soft brush and started to brush carefully and tenderly at the surface of the slab.
Mattie looked at Marty and Daniellzgurl who shrugged.
"I dunno what they are." Said Daniellzgurl. "I think they may be linked to misspelling of character names. Somebody must have decided that Danyell was the right spelling or something. He's kinda cute though. Midget Daniels."
Her voice trailed off and her eyes glazed over again.
Marty slapped her on the arm. "For heaven's sake get a bloody grip Daniellzgurl. Have we all finished with the forms? The registration tent is empty now."
ColonelSam frantically scribbled the information down on her forms using Mattie's back to rest on.
"Nearly finished." She muttered. "Frelling things."
"Isn't that Farscape slang?" Asked Mattie curiously.
"Yeah, but one of my fanfic crimes is inappropriate use of character swearing. I'm finding it hard to get my tongue around anything stronger than frelling for some reason. It's very frustrating. Must be this fraggling place."
Mattie smothered a giggle. "Sounds very funny."
"Oh yeah. That's me. A flobbing laugh a minute." Said ColonelSam dryly. She signed the declaration form. "Finished, now let's go and see what's in store for us at registration."
They all headed towards the registration tent.
"Oof. Ouch. For cryin' out loud."
Mattie tumbled out of the gate on the other side of the wormhole and landed in an untidy heap at the bottom of the stone steps.
"Was that a 'gratuitous Colonel O'Neill quote'?" A voice demanded in a rather querulous tone.
Mattie looked up to see the System Lord Morrigan standing in front of her, hands on hips. She wore a black feather trimmed basque, tight black trousers and thigh length boots. The whole seductive nine yards. She was accompanied by what appeared to be a tiny version of Colonel O'Neill, but with large ears and two distinct horns poking through his baseball cap. He was carrying a clipboard and had a stubby, well-chewed pencil stuck behind one large ear.
Mattie blinked a number of times, held her head and groaned. This was just too much, even if it was a dream.
"O'Neil with one L, make a note of this. It should be added to this human's fanfic crime list". Morrigan commanded imperiously.
"You got it Lady M." O'Neil with one L piped enthusiastically. He pulled the pencil from behind his ear, licked the tip and started scribbling.
"What?" Exclaimed Mattie. She jumped up and started to brush the dust off her jeans. "No! Wait a minute. That wasn't a.a what you said. My dad always used to say it when I was a kid. Mom said it was his way of avoiding swearing in front of us."
Morrigan eyed her suspiciously. "Hmm, sounds like a blatant human lie to me, but since you have just arrived here, we will give you the benefit of the doubt. This time. However, one more even slightly 'gratuitous Colonel O'Neill quote' and it will go badly for you. We will show no mercy. You will suffer greatly!"
Her eyes glowed and her voice began to rise. Mattie stared in horrified disbelief as Morrigan prepared to go into full System Lord mode. It was only O'Neil with one L tugging at her sleeve that stopped her dead.
"What IS it?" She hissed. "And what have I told you about touching me without permission? You'll crush the feathers. And don't call me Lady M. Your Glory will suffice. Rather fitting for a Goddess don't you think?"
She arched her neck and preened.
"Oh give me strength." Said O'Neil with one L. "For a start, we're not allowed to torture the new students. At least not until they've registered and gone through kitting out and basic training. Then you know as well as I do that it's up to Ba'al as to how much torture gets meted out, what it'll be and who does it. It's always either him or Terak anyway. You already gave her the benefit of the doubt and you're supposed to greet her, not scare her to death. That's Ra's job."
"But I'm a Goa'uld System Lord. That's what I do." Said Morrigan in a plaintive voice.
"Oh for cryin, I mean, for heaven's sake!" O'Neil with an L corrected himself quickly. "You've been at the fanfics again haven't you? You know Miss S and her rules about staff reading the stories on the internet. She'll take your slave privileges away again."
"Oh very well." Said Morrigan crossly. "Give me the forms."
O'Neil with an L immediately produced some forms from his jacket pocket and handed them to her. Morrigan in turn handed them to Mattie with a flourish.
"Fill these out, read the information, sign the disclaimer and then go to the registration tent and they will process you."
Mattie stared at the forms in complete disbelief. They seemed to be some sort of medical form, a personal details form, a list of items and something which was a disclaimer of some kind. She opened her mouth to protest, but before she could utter a word, she was interrupted.
"OH FOR CRYIN' OUT LOUD! Holy Hannah, what is this flubbing crap?" Bellowed a voice. A body shot down the steps from the gate and lay groaning miserably at the bottom.
Morrigan's eyes glowed again. She straightened her shoulders, fluffed out the black feathers on her outfit and headed in the direction of the unwitting 'gratuitous Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter quote' offender with an evil smile on her face. She didn't often get a double gratuitous quote offender. Things were beginning to look up. O'Neil with one L started after her, but stopped when Mattie put her hand on his shoulder.
"What now?" He asked in a slightly irritable tone.
"Er. Pen? I haven't got a pen, to fill these out and then where do I go again?"
She felt a little helpless in the face of all these bizarre happenings, but since she was actually asleep, there seemed no harm in going along with it. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, she thought, mentally shrugging her shoulders.
O'Neil with one L sighed heavily and reached into another pocket. He handed her an even worse version of the chewed off pencil he was using.
"You just make sure I get that back Airman!" He said, his little fingers stabbing somewhere in the region of her knees. "US Air Force Issue. I have to account for these at the end of the month. Paperwork, I hate paperwork. First tent on the left is where you go when you've filled them in. As you were Airman."
With that, he scuttled off to where Morrigan was busy berating a confused looking girl of about twenty, who had a shock of unruly red hair and a pierced nose. She was dressed in black grunge style clothing.
Mattie looked around to see if there was something that she could rest on to fill out the forms. A short distance away, a group of three people were sat around a flat rock, which looked suspiciously like an altar of some description. They were laboriously filling out forms, all using stubby pencils of various lengths and decrepitude. One of them, a very young girl of about fourteen, was writing with her tongue sticking out, concentrating fiercely. Mattie approached them warily.
"Do you have room for one more down there?" She asked tentatively.
"Oh sure thing!" Said an older grey-haired woman cheerfully. She had a tee shirt on with Martouf 4 Ever on the back and Save Martouf emblazoned across the front. "I'm Martouf's Love Slave. What did they get you for?"
Mattie looked confused. "Get me? What do you mean?"
Martouf's Love Slave grinned and pointed at the sheaf of forms Mattie was holding.
"Your list of fanfic crimes. With the forms. It tells you what you did to get sent here! Mine are bad punctuation and spelling, unrealistic character portrayal, misspelling of character names, blatant Sam and Martouf shipping and failure to produce a realistic and believable Goa'uld enemy, among others."
Mattie looked at the forms and frowned. "I see. Ah, here it is. My list says unrealistic characterisation, lengthy infodump introductory paragraphs, inappropriate pairings, unrealistic and unreasonable enemy construction and mild Sam and Jack shipping. Oh, and also physical impossibilities, but not sexual, whatever that means."
A young woman with long dark hair and glasses looked up from filling out her forms.
"It means that you don't make them do things sexually that only a contortionist could do, but that you do make them do things like carry an injured person when they have a broken leg." She said helpfully. "My name is Daniellzgurl. Daniel whumping, Daniel and Jack comforting, over-use of the nickname 'Space-Monkey', inappropriate pairings and complete lack of realistic characterisation of all characters except Daniel, of course, who is wonderful. TWTID." Her eyes started to glaze over and a puddle of drool collected at one corner of her mouth. Martouf's Love Slave rolled her eyes and poked her in the arm. She jerked into the present. "Oops, sorry about that. I sort of drool a lot when Daniel is mentioned."
She held out her hand to Mattie who took it.
"How are you doing?" She said politely. "I'm Mattie."
Martouf's Love Slave immediately bristled.
"That's not Mattie meaning Martouf is it?" She demanded suspiciously. Daniellzgurl chuckled and shook her head.
"No of course not!" Protested Mattie, flushing. "It's my actual name. Mattie, short for Matilda, but I hate that name. So Mattie it is."
Her voice trailed off uncomfortably. So, there were insane people in her dream. Great. Just what she needed. A dream filled with System Lords, midget Jack O'Neills with horns and insane fans.
"Give it a rest Marty! You're probably going to meet a few rivals for Martouf here. No sense in getting bent out of shape every time you meet one." Said Daniellzgurl who was still laughing. "Take a pew Mattie and fill out your forms. Looks like the queue in the registration tent is thinning. We can all go in together."
Mattie grinned and sat down cross-legged in front of the stone slab. She spent the next ten minutes filling out medical information, including a part which asked her what her preferences were if she died during the course. She could be healed by the Tok'ra with a healing device, sent to Sickbay for Dr Frasier to deal with, sent to the Nox or put in a sarcophagus. She decided to opt for the Nox. The healing device didn't seem to work much with Daniel in Meridian and the Goa'uld were a big negative for her. Dr Frasier definitely wasn't an option. Too much hit and miss experimental medicine, not to mention shots. Mattie hated shots with a vengeance.
"Er. Course. What do they mean, course?" She asked.
Marty chuckled. "Didn't Morrigan tell you? This is the registration area for the Official Fanfic University for Stargate fanfic writers or OFUS. It's kind of like a boot camp cum university. We have to pass the course or never, ever write another Stargate fanfic as long as we live. It's all there on the back of the declaration anyway. We're here because we've all committed crimes against fanfic writing."
Mattie shuffled through the forms.
"Yeah, you're right, here it is. Thanks. Oh my god." She said, after she had read the blurb. "This is just screwy!"
"Is there room for a little one down there?" The red headed girl had escaped Morrigan and O'Neil with one L and was headed their way with her forms clutched in her hand.
"Of course." Mattie grinned up at her and shuffled around to make a space. "I'm Mattie."
"Hi." Said the girl brightly. "My name's ColonelSam."
"A Major Carter fan I take it?" Queried Daniellzgurl. "Chloe over there is a Sam fan too. Major shipper, not to mention a 'Samantha Carter as real life role model' perpetrator, major homonym use, gratuitous textspeak instead of proper English and complete lack of punctuation or paragraphs. Isn't that right Chloe? I'm Daniellzgurl and that's Martouf's Love Slave over there."
Chloe blushed furiously. She had a halo of short blonde curls and very blue eyes. Mattie hazarded a guess that it was meant to be a Sam Carter look that had gone slightly awry.
"Ooh yes." Cooed Chloe in a soft dreamy voice. "Sam is so wonderful. She's so clever and so beautiful. I'd love to be just like her."
"Oh crud." Groaned Marty making a barfing motion. "Someone gag her, she's off again. Once she starts she can't shut up."
"Aw leave her alone." Said ColonelSam protectively. She winked at Chloe who giggled. "There's nothing wrong with a kid seeking a role model and she could do a lot worse than Samantha Carter. I like Carter because she's gorgeous and sexy as well as strong and tough. She fights like a man and knows everything about wormhole physics. She's a better role model than dumb and dumber Jack."
Mattie's head reared up defensively. "Jack's not dumb and dumber. He just uses humour to make situations easier. He was the one who had the knowledge of the Ancients dumped into his brain, not Sam, and anyway, the Asgard said he was the next step on the evolutionary ladder!"
They all stared at her in amusement.
"So, no guesses as to which character you like then?" Asked Marty slyly.
Mattie blushed to the roots of her hair and bent over the forms. The declaration was quite simply stating that they would abide by the regulations of OFUS and should they fail the course, would promise, on pain of death and torture by Ba'al, Terak and/or any of the other System Lord Teaching Staff so instructed to carry out the sentence, that they would never venture to write another piece of Stargate fanfiction. Not even a filk, crossover or a drabble. So exactly how were they going to stop her? Thought Mattie sarcastically as she signed the declaration with a fine flourish. They'd have to catch her first and in any case, they were all just dream characters. She was going to wake up very soon.
A small Daniel with horns and big ears just like O'Neil with one L scurried over to them. He wore a huge badge in the shape of a pink heart with Cupid's arrow through it. On the badge his name read as 'Danyell'. Instead of a baseball cap, he wore a bandanna and the horns just peeked coyly at the edge of it. He pushed his glasses up his nose and glared at them in indignation.
"Not on the artefacts." He squeaked. "How many times do I have to tell Morrigan and O'Neil with one L not to let you students rest on the artefacts to fill your forms out? Shoo, shoo. There's a table over there, use that."
The group got to their feet and Danyell immediately hunkered down making soothing noises at the slab as though it was alive. He pulled out a soft brush and started to brush carefully and tenderly at the surface of the slab.
Mattie looked at Marty and Daniellzgurl who shrugged.
"I dunno what they are." Said Daniellzgurl. "I think they may be linked to misspelling of character names. Somebody must have decided that Danyell was the right spelling or something. He's kinda cute though. Midget Daniels."
Her voice trailed off and her eyes glazed over again.
Marty slapped her on the arm. "For heaven's sake get a bloody grip Daniellzgurl. Have we all finished with the forms? The registration tent is empty now."
ColonelSam frantically scribbled the information down on her forms using Mattie's back to rest on.
"Nearly finished." She muttered. "Frelling things."
"Isn't that Farscape slang?" Asked Mattie curiously.
"Yeah, but one of my fanfic crimes is inappropriate use of character swearing. I'm finding it hard to get my tongue around anything stronger than frelling for some reason. It's very frustrating. Must be this fraggling place."
Mattie smothered a giggle. "Sounds very funny."
"Oh yeah. That's me. A flobbing laugh a minute." Said ColonelSam dryly. She signed the declaration form. "Finished, now let's go and see what's in store for us at registration."
They all headed towards the registration tent.
