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The town was all geared up for the upcoming election and town businesses and organizations were invited to set up booths and tables, or just open their doors and show their town support.

Of course the local radio station WWMI was there in all it's glory. Twin DJ's Wendy and Tom Drummond in all their tattooed fashionable glory were there with a simple mic set up and giveaways for t-shirts, buttons, stickers, and #fogpocalypse2016 paraphenalia. (And funding this public radio ok, FUNDING).

Social media was buzzing on instagram, twitter and even some carefully crafted snapchat filters for those that were into that sort of thing (Wendy totally was). There were trending hashtags for candidiates and even joke write ins #Cid2016 and #TrumpForMayorLOL

The whole town was coming out. SHOULD BE A GOOD TIME.

"What the s**t, Cid," said Scott, who of course had come down to cause problems and generally be troublesome, as was his wont. His toddler was perched on one hip, bright green eyes focused on some point far in the distance. Probably a dog or something. Anna loved the s**t out of dogs. "You're joining the Wong side? C'mon. That's like joining the Evil League of Evil."

Wong side, more like Wrong side.

"She wants to bring back the cellists for Ashdown Summer Nights," he said. "The cellists, Cid... and have you seen Koyo, he's wandered off again."

"You know Cid's a dirty traitor for the slogan of the week. If you come up with a good one, he'll switch sides again-" Wendy was off mic, and gave Scott a wink, "I got your back... Not that the station is allowed to promote or anything."

Wink wink wink.

"What was the one you came up with? Wong for the Win? Slip em the old WONG?" She glanced at Cid.

"No, no. I think it was worse than that. Lois might have made a face when I suggested 'once you go Wong, you never go back.'" Sometimes Cid was deliberately terrible, giving Wendy a shameless grin. "Might have made a wong, wang one too but I can't remember it at the moment." Also not appropriate for young ears.

Very not appropriate.

He was snickering, wiggling fingers at Anna and then amused that Toyo had found his Magekiller stash. "Does anyone side with Stannard? I mean, really ..." A face before he was distracted again. There were too many thoughts in his head and he flitted from one to the next far too quickly. "I think we've already got a cubicle farmer problem and that we need to move far, far away from it."

Cid had tried that once. Once. It was a dark time. Also the office building where he had worked had him banned from the premises with a restraining order. This was probably why he would never really be a true candidate. "See, I always had George pegged as a secret hardcore CoD player. Like he thinks we don't know he has a xbox one." A laugh. "GamerGate would totally be his jam. Then again, let's not. He doesn't need any more followers right now."

Politics were something one had to be careful about. It was one of the topics that was rather taboo to talk about with the other being religion. Generally speaking, folks didn't want to step on other people's toes by talking about their political beliefs. Asiya was the same way when she lived at home, though now that she was independent, it didn't matter to her so much anymore. She could express herself freely without the fear of earning the ire from her parents.

Her parents were probably going to vote for Lois, but Asiya herself found herself aligned with the upcoming Scott Fitzgerald. To show her support, she had helped to create and produce a creative slogan for the mayoral candidate, in hopes of boosting his chances. 'Paint the Town Red. Fitzgerald for Mayor 2016.' and 'Vote Scott Free.' Aside from the buttons, Asiya also dressed herself in Scott's chosen colors and donned both a shirt and a button, along with a complementing headscarf.

But those weren't the only things that Asiya had created for the election. For her own amusement and to poke fun at the local curmudgeon that was George Edwards, she also created another button. This one said 'Stanley-Doodles for Mayor. 2016.' and another one that said, 'All Bark, No Bite. Stanley-Doodles.' Each button had a cute little image of a fat, friendly-looking lab wearing a top hat. This was to add an extra wow factor, and to be honest, Asiya was quite proud of these buttons. Whether or not George would be amused, however, was a whole other ball game, entirely.

"Oh, man -- you can already feel the spirit here, and the elections haven't even started. This is going to be great!" It was clear that Asiya was excited. Anything to help change Ashdown for the better and in a way she could help play a part, was awesome in her mind.

Thomas - at that question got an enormous grin on his face. “Tell me your WEIRDEST story.” He said slapping his hands together with enthusiasm. Thomas liked to sport ‘odd local stories’ or sometimes not so local stories on his radio show. He said the late night atmosphere lent itself to weird stories and he often lamented not having many himself… unless you counted his Cat Mr. President being something of a Houdini.

“I’d love a new weird story to put on the show…if you’re alright with that! Heck if it’s good enough, we can do an Interview like that one my Sister did!” He jerked a thumb at Wendy with his eyes still bright and enthused with the idea of collecting something new and Odd himself.

“And if its SUPER good I’ll make sure you get a shirt from my Show too…. or hers, I guess.” He rolled his eyes at the idea that someone might want a shirt for his sister’s show, but his voice was teasing.

There was a moment of pure pout from Thomas, then his eyebrows arched at the story that -was- offered. "Well... I'm not sure how well that would go over on the radio but -I- for one would love to hear it. You don't happen to still have some parts of that costume do you? I'd totally give you a shirt if you put it on and those...Political people... go ask them some questions about their plans for the future...for.. you know, irony and all that." He grinned enormously.

"Oh, I love those." Because of course, why wouldn't she? Ves was pointing to the buttons Asiya had on. "Scott's gotta win it."

As the only candidate with a real passion for the arts, Scott had her vote. And the fact that he was a professor at Rider-Waite made him seem so much more real. Ves could imagine taking a class with him and interacting with him, which was more than she could say for the others.

"All Bark, No Bite," she read aloud with a laugh. "Stanley-Doodle would make a great mayor, though, I'll give him that."



Unfortunately for Rylan, this year's elections were not winning him any favors from his family. His dads didn't necessarily trust Fitzgerald's lack of political experience, so they stood unabashedly in Lois' corner. And Rylan had won himself the title of the stuffiest guy in the family by siding with George Edwards.

But as the only candidate with a clear stance on crime and public safety, Edwards seemed like the only suitable choice. The police, after all, were critical to improving security around town.

Still, Rylan wasn't opposed to seeing what else people were saying.

"Hey there," he said, wandering up to the Broken Circuits booth. "Would you mind taking a look at this? It's been a little weird since it braved a fire with me a few weeks back. Slow, and sometimes shuts off without warning."

Maybe the heat had fried it.