2019-12-30 - Winter Wonderland: Sundae Drivers

Standing next to the driver's front fender of a Sinister 1967 Dodge Dart Hardtop made, seemingly, out of one piece of black licorice, the driver for this vehicle is likewise dressed in all black; but he's a huge figure. Copper '69 's on both the hood and the back of his black coverall signifies both his third-place standing last time and his childish flippancy to the whole event.
Best. Dream. EVAR.
Clay fingers shoot over his head, Everett bowing his head to salute his clay devil lord and clampers inside his vehicle before turning it on and rumbling the engine, and spinning the large Wagon Wheel rear tires to the front Oreo ones.

Claymation Nicole looks Holiday Sweet with her blonde curled hair, big brown eyes, and painted on smile with rouge tinted cheeks. She's wearing what any good Claymation woman wore in the old films; a blue dress topped with a white apron. Her car matches, all decked out in a Winter Wonderland of sweet treats. The body is made out of Blueberry swirl candy sticks stuck together, white fluffy marshmallow seats, crystal clear light blue lollipop steering wheel, and snow man face cookies for wheels (oreo cookies dipped in white chocolate then painted with snowman faces). With added decor of sugar art snowflakes stuck on for extra bling, she looks ready to go as she waits at the starting line, revving the engine of her sweet little ride.

Alison sneezes. And then she's clearly in it. Again. "What the hell.. ugh, that's what I get for watching Rudolph before bed." She looks at her arms, the redhead's movements oddly flickery and not quite as smooth as they would be normally. Her car's been placed in front of her on the track, and she hops right in. It's a giant piece of red licorice with a white creme filling in the middle, visible at both the front and the back. Gumdrops make up the wheels, and a peppermint disc makes the steering wheel.

The redhead looks around for the radio, thinking to pair it to her phone for ideal race music, but there isn't one. There's basic controls for driving, at least. With a shrug, she peers around at what seem to be her competitors, and prepares to peel the hell off the starting line, like when you press the acceleration button at just the right time as the light turns green.

Byron never knows how he ends up in Dreams like these. Perhaps, the next time that someone schedules a go-kart race of any sort, he should decline. Either way, this time around, he finds himself in what could be a dragster, which in turn is really just a Pez dispenser making up much of the vehicle's frame. Two large Oreos are set in to be the back tires while a pair of cheerios make up the front.

It's winter, so Thorne is dressed in many warm layers. Unlike the last time where he was dressed to impress for the Masquerade, this time around, he's wearing several warm sweaters, a protective hat with goggles and driving gloves. This claymation version of him would have perfectly slicked back hair, but it's beneath a helmet, so no matter. Still, he flashes that winning smile while this heroic scarf flutters behind him.

Lilith's car is bright red and dusted with glitter... oh wait, that's sugar. In fact, as she tries to orient in her seat she finds herself in a gummy seat just like the rest of the car. Shock impact? Okay. Check. She can orient to some level of finding herself out of sorts and the fact that her gear shift is actually a strawberry Blow Pop but...

As she looks at where she is, she can't help but notices that those aren't claymation strangers in those other cars, they're people she kind of knows and... really knows. Which means...

After flipping down her visor to look in the glassy sugar hard candy mirror, she looks at her hair in Gumby-style brown curls and puts on a smile and a frown both to watch her painted lips do the stop motion of clay animation type. Then she cusses and flips the visor up to adjust her helmet because despite how squishy her head looks, she knows it's not. Then she looks at Byron and can't help it. She cracks up.

Lyric and her cotton candy hair drives a jalopy looking car that would be at home in something like a Flintstone cartoon but it's made of Skittles with peppermint patty wheels and steering wheel. There's plenty of cotton candy floss everywhere inside too. Padding and airbags baby! Or something.

Food in clay is one thing. Clay in food is an abomination! Even if Vyv's car itself is, as last time, sculpted as though someone thinks chocolate is just as good an art substrate as any clay or marble. Sleek dark chocolate, likely enrobing something else delicious but perhaps simply solid, as there's really no sign otherwise, moulded to resemble the curvy, low-slung race cars of yesteryear. Vanilla cake upholstery sets off candied-orange-slice wheels with their rinds dipped in chocolate for deliciousness and grip, and down the sides of the car, precise racing stripes have been picked out in edible gold leaf. A single star adorns those stripes near the back, also in gold leaf: the evidence of last race's triumph. The colour theme continues through the citrus-slice steering wheel and the clear-candy windscreen in its thin chocolate setting. As in the real world, the patissier deals not in 'candy' but confections, meant for adults who want more from their desserts than simply sugar. Even here, there are standards.

Which possibly has something to do with his decidedly amused expression as he looks over the other racers and recognizes most going faintly horrified as he looks down at his own (puppety clay!) gloved hand and arm, and then peeks in his silver-leaf mirrors. He's got the long scarf like last time, and driving goggles to go with the gloves, and a well-fitted leather jacket like an old-time pilot. Perfectly good trousers and shoes. Except. Except that they're all as well done as he could hope for a claymation cartoon and that is-- that's--

...well, at least his hair still looks good. Someone should get a pat on the back for that. He takes a breath and another look around, with a faintly disappointed look at some aspect he notices, and then settles in, looking toward the lights. "Round two?" he asks in light challenge of everyone and no one in particular, pleased to find that at least he sounds like himself.

The gumdrops overhead alight

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... A very roughly animated wooden bluebird \o/ /0\ \o/ flaps and lands. on the branch. in a whole 9 frames per second pauses. It tap tap taps the green gumdrop. It tap tap taps it again trying to get it to light. Nothing happens. It looks at the box where a jolly man in a red suit says into a microphone behind his cotton candy beard "Well I don't know. I'm a toymaker, not an IT professional. Did we turn it off and on again? Ya did well, gee I dunno give it a good whack. That'show we get the wood wheels on the trains to go."

The bird complies with Father Claymas' suggestion, pulls backa nd whack it hard with it's beak. The gumdrop falls OFF the stoplight and it's universally accepted that when it hits the cotton batting that is snow for the set that it's a good sign as any to begin the race and all the tiny elves on their shelves in the bleachers start clapping and cheering with the sound track ad Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin break out in Marshamallow World.

Alison throws the pretzel stick gear shifter into gear as the timer starts, guns the gas, and them floors it juuuust as the green gumdrop hits the 'ground'. She keeps pace with most of the rest of the crowd, slight dismay on her face as a few people start pulling ahead. Especially the dude with the perpetual smoulder on his face who's somehow pulled way ahead. What the hell? How'd he go so much faster?

Lilith hasn't quite done this like some of the others seem ready to, but all the same, is she ready to get her competitive race on? She damn sure is after that time of orienting, wondering what-the-hell and laughing at the very cuteness of Byron et all in their current altered-vision claymation state.

After the go is given, she does some looking around to make sure that's what is happening, which is a bad hesitation for a slow start on her part, but she goes! And while she goes, she dumbly calls attention to right where she is for further slowing or cut off or attack because she just HAS to beep her gumdrop horn to see what it sounds like.

It sounds like a squeaky honked nose noise going a high-pitched level of WHEE-WHOMP. Impressive. Maybe not the most motivating sound in the world though and holy hell, she can't even SEE anything but Byron's sugared dust anymore, along with some of the others. Nicole is nearby and she gets a little wave suddenly on recognition with the beep.

The Skittles Flintstone car gets a little loose in the back. Happens when you accelerate too quickly and as Cotton Candy Lyric tries to get it straightened out, she gets further behind the leaders as she blows kisses to her friendly Gingerbread men people. Her fans from before. Winning isn't everything and she's in it for the fun. She cruises on blowing kisses to her adoring crowd.

Primed. Revving the engine. Waiting. For. The... "OH, COME ON!"
The gumdrop drops and Everett hits the gas. But he doesn't release the brake. Turning the wheel back and forth, he lets his tires peel wheel and road up and aerosol it. Now it MAY just happen that his vehicle was pointed in a particular direction at the time. It MAY be that under his helmet, Clay-vett is grinning like a banshee. "See you at the finish line, pun-- wah!" his goating at putting a blanket to obscufate Vyv's path is short lived.

Claymation Nicole stares up at the green light, waiting for it to light while the wooden bluebird tap tap taps. She's got her foot on the pez gas pedal, and her hands gripping that lolliwheel as she stop-action blink blink blinks. With the ticking of movements, her head follows the trajectory down as the green gumdrop light falls into the cotton batting snow. Her Claymation smile slips into a pucker as she watched it land with surprise. It takes the song starting for her to realize it meant it was time to GO GO GO!

Down she presses her foot and with the screeching tires spinning in that beloved old-timey Holiday movie style, she burns white chocolate and VROOMS right out! She's not ahead (darn you Vyv, you... chocolate citrusy master you!) but so far, so good! Her blonde clay hair flutters in wide sections in that twitchy movement as she drives and when Lilith has fun beeping her horn, she can't resist giving a Beep Beep and a Toot Toot right back with an exagerated Claymation wink!

There were a few less racers this time around. Many were familiar faces from before, but Byron is surprised to notice Lilith here. Is that a look of annoyance on his face? If it is, he tends to wear one more often than not when he's shaking his head. Eventually, however, he beams over at the other racer, before revving up his engine. He remembers how things went the last time he was pulled into a race such as this.

Perhaps he was blessed with a far better car than whatever he'd driven the last time around. This /looked/ like a far better car or one that would go faster, but on this surface there was concern that those Cheerios and Oreos would go slipping and sliding like crazy. It's also come equipped with a few tools to use, or get rid of, because it's only weighing him down. The first thing to go, is one of those large gobstoppers. Those things are heavy as fuck. It was like an anchor weighing him down-- which he probably should've kept in his car before he starts to skid and drift, but I digress.

He had a good start as far as he could tell, the last Victor, one of his own tenants, Vyv, was right there in his sights.

Vyv has not been practicing, because where do you practice this? But he's watching that light like the proverbial hawk, except for the part where he doesn't then leap on the smaller bird trying to light it and eviscerate it, tense with readiness. He's got a medal to defend! ...and not the slightest competitive streak otherwise, of course. Plus... the last time was the most fun he's ever had this side of the Veil, not that he's admitted that aloud to anyone. He waits, hand on the shifter and feet just at the pedals, until the gumdrop, uh, drops, and then he's off like a shot. A shot of peppermint schnapps, possibly. There's plenty of grip to get going, and if there's less once he's on the track proper -- well, seems like he's got it drifting the right angles for now, even as the speed eases up past what the combination of tires and track seems likely to safely, or even reasonably, allow, scarf billowing out behind. The expression as he gets a lead isn't much more demonstrative than he usually allows. But it is definitely much more accurately described as 'glee'.

Lilith gets a little too into the groove with her driving and speeds up, but the sugary setting has a very icy and mean kind of track, sweetness of everything aside. That or maybe she was distracted too much with all that horn tooting prior, because she did it again, it seems to amuse her to smash a gumdrop in the steering wheel that makes that noise.

Abruptly, though, she starts to SLIDE SLIDE SLIDE instead of drive and roll and panicking, she tries to think of what she's supposed to do on ice when she loses traction! Letting go of the wheel to let it just culminate the skid out instead of fighting sends her smashing into a little tiny flock of sugar faeries like so many windshield ornaments. They splat, she's disoriented, one of them peels off and flips her off before hobble flying away. The others look all smushed and dead, though. She has a moment where she's trying to figure out if she should feel bad, but she just got flipped off by a sugar fairy, so it's motivation enough.

Lilith tries to get her car under some form of control or traction while murmuring with dizzy whiplash, "... shouldn't have gotten in the way, jeeez, it's a race track, idiot faerie crossing, what? Fuck you too, Tinkerbell."

Alison gets the feeling of the car after a little bit, figuring out when the car likes to be shifted from one gear to another, how it's gripping the track. She pulls closer to the leaders with a few others, at which point she notices Everett, the big hulking gorilla driving what looks like an actual classic car, just made out of licorice? "What the hell, Everett? Why are you in my dreams?" At which point, she swerves towards him in her much smaller red licorice racer, hoping to make him swerve to avoid her and slow him down a little.

It seems Nicole burned a little too much White Chocolate on her hot-shot burst into action. One of her tires has been worn flat in a spot, making it harder to steer smoothly and drive straight. There is a new comical THUMP THUMP THUMP as her car moves in that flicker fashion of claymation; one moment it's smooth tire, next flat. Smooth. Flat. Smooth Flat. Her clay do no longer waves behind her, as slowed as she is, but a small flip of a curl flutters just off to the side. Her claymation lips have moved from puckered surprise to downturned frown.

Vroom, Vroom! Lyric is driving a little better this time. She's gained a little confidence. Or maybe she's just on a sugar high, it could be either. She pulls some fluff, the cotton candy, and nibblenibbles as she drives, her tires doing well on the sugarplums. The steering wheel is surely looking good, but for now she holds off, but she eyeballs it now and again. Totally distracted, but maybe that's better, because she seems to be driving by instinct than any real thought process behind it.

When his Pez Dispensing Dragster was picking up speed, Byron knew that he was really pressing his luck on this slipper surface. By the time he's able to shift gears in an attempt to prevent himself from spinning out, there's some chips in his edible wheels as they get knicked by those various faerie potholes that he desperately tries to steer around. "This is like driving in NYC." He seethes out in complaint, those gloved hands gripping his steering wheel tightly in agitation. He knows that he's lost some ground, but better safe than sorry, right? Not if you want to win this damn thing!

There's a problem with the whole 'speed via ice' thing that Vyv's ended up doing here. Well, two. But they both boil down to 'traction: it's a good thing'. By the time he's hit a lead, it's purely a matter of ice skating, and the best he can do for control is to drop gear and focus on steering, which prevents him running into anything he'd rather not -- like, say, a bunch of faeries and their ninja snowstars -- and slows him down, back into something he has proper control over. So that's good. Ish. But it loses him ground, the racer sliding into almost a drift as it nears the end of the portion of track and the tir-- chocolate starts gripping the track again. Everett appears to be apace, now, and he can't have that. The man sells ice cream cakes!

A large gobstopper bounces off the 'road' ad at the last moment is spotted by the Black Driver. A hard swerve to the side, bounces Everett off the licorice frame of his muscle car hard enough to leave him CLAY ACHIN. But he has his target in front of him. For the enjoyment of others and to prove he is as villains as he believes himself to be, a black glove comes off the steering wheel and a single finger lifted out the window. Then he takes his hand back when he's checked by Alison, "HA!" Witty. That's him. Then he points a clay finger at the lead car, "Get that guy! He's triple points!" Sicking Alison on Vyv, the Debbie Cake salesman.

Lilith finally gets some semblance of traction once she stops spinning and she takes a beat to squirt her front winshield with lemonade and turn on the pair of candy-striped wipers to get the smashed dead/dazed (sassy) faeries out of her eyeline so she can see what she's doing! Should she feel bad about faeries? Bugs. Just cute bugs. Right? Right. Go!

So Lilith starts to go and spin wheel and creep to get on the track again, slowly trying to work with her traction to send her into a mix of drive and glide she can control. And it kind of works at first, but who knows how long it will last. Also, while driving, she reaches to snap off the hard-candy turn signal indicator to stick in her mouth and suck on for candy concentration because it looks edible and she's not going to be using her TURN SIGNAL in a race, that's silly. Much better use like this. Pleasantly, it tastes like strawberry lemonade, which seems to be her car's theme now that she's seen the wiper fluid going with all the red.

Vroom, sputter, sputter, Vroom. Clank. The Gingerbread Groupies let out a sound of disappointment when purple smoke and shiny glitter shoots from t from underneath Lyric's car. For the moment, there's trouble, car trouble, maybe she can rally and get going from here!

It seems when Nicole's little Winter-themed kart hit the icecream way, it helped build up that flat part of her wheel (at least temporarily), and she was able to get a good bit forward again. It's par for the course of her life, really; just keep trying to go forward, no matter what tries to set you back. At least she didn't have to scrape pointy-toothed fairies from her window.

The chipped tires due to the various pot holes very well may have helped Byron's speedster gain more traction, giving him slightly better control that he had originally anyway. With his scarf whipping merrily behind him, he takes a moment to adjust his rearview mirror to see just how far behind everyone else was. There were various colorful vehicles behind him, but none of them looked like Lilith. This was a Dream and not one that, as he could recall from the last time, was any danger to anyone, unless you're talking about pride. So rather than slow his wheels to look for her, he's already turning that very sharp corner.

Where unlike mere ice, the path ahead of him is laden with delicious traps of all sorts. The hairpin turn alone has his hands scrambling to work that steering wheel. He can only hope that he can stop himself in time before he crashes into one of those damned pecans.

Leaning even as he pulls the wheel, leading his car into the power slide to recover from the change of roads, Everett's helmeted head turns Vyv-ward as he points, no matter if Byron's car is passing unnoticed, "I'll get you. And your little dog too!" which certainly couldn't be a reference to anyone Vyv hangs out with. Turning his attention back to the ice cream scenery, Everett starts to hum, and then outright sing, "Ice. Ice. Baby! Doo, dee doo doo, dee doo."

Alison grins widely as she spies the track in front of her opening up. Everett pulls ahead a little bit, but the real target of her ire is Byron at this point, pulling even further ahead. She yells back at Everett, who'd told her to go after Vyv, "He's kinda hot though!" And then she punches her gas pedal. It's not very effective. "Dammit!" The redhead punches her peppermint disc steering wheel, and a tiny, pathetic little horn goes off, sounding something like Beaker from the Muppets.

meep.

Vyv has the car under control now, hooray! But-- maybe not entirely the track. He gets things back in better gear but there just isn't enough traction to really pick up much speed, and dammit, is that his claymation landlord taking a lead? He growls low in his throat and-- Everett is pointing at him? If it IS a reference to anyone Vyv hangs out with -- which, to be fair, is a very short and non-canine list -- it does not hit home, and just gets a confused and rather annoyed look. Granted, no more annoyed than he already looked with the car's lack of cooperation on regaining that distance he lost. "Remind me to bring along a bucket of water next time!" he calls back. At least that track ahead looks like it, uh... fixes the traction problem. And Alison's yell gets a flicker of a glance her way, a tiny bit of the upward quirk to his lips returning as he urges the car on.

Lilith is on the move! And she's feeling proud and ready to pick up speed from her cautious re-start, but there's road hazards all over and one of them scraaaaapes at her under carriage before snapping something she might have needed off. Actually, it's probably just cosmetic because the car is riding fine until she hits a single fairy again in the front grill that gets sucked into the engine or something!

Her car starts to rumble and slow and skid like it needs to cough the fairy out of the exhaust, so Lilith guns and brakes and guns and brakes with the engine to try and get it running smooth again, like that is how you pass a fairy through a car. Look, it's the car version of coughing something up if she does that, in her mind. Hopefully, though, it works! She wants to keep going even though she's... well, losing. But with the candy stick turn signal in her mouth, she doesn't grind her teeth or anything about it, she just swaps candy to the other side and tries to tactic through the fairy stuck in her engine.

There's such a shriek from the redhead as she slides into the icicles. Her gumdrop tires get absolutely shredded! "Nooo! I need those!" And then here come the gingerbread boys with marshmallows? Okay, this could work. Before too long, they've got her lifted up in her car over the trap. Which is great!

Except for the part where it reminds her of that weird night around Halloween when the slendermen? Slendermans? Anyways, dudes attacked them, and this big creepy.. thing? Picked her and James up, moving her car with them inside it away from the slendermen. No Slendermen on this track, anyways, so it's not too vivid a memory, and they even move her a bit forward. "Thanks, boys!" If only she wasn't falling so far behind the pack, though..

So maybe Lyric is catching up a little.. or maybe not, but she's giving it a shot! Minus a tiny pinch of peppermint patty from her steering wheel. Those were so good, and they chased cotton candy pretty well also. A red skittle is eaten next but Lyric keeps on keeping on. There's a secret hand signal to her few fans in the Gingerbread Gang, those with the cotton candy hair making them look like little George Washington's. Maybe they could help her out some!

The road is clearly marked, but roads? Where we're going, muscle car, we won't need roads. His eyes widen before he gains a huge ... grin and jerks his steering wheel to a hard left. With falling hazards like sprinkles and cherries, it's important to get out of here as soon as possible. Wheels picking up sprinkles, wedging into his Wagon Wheels, making it more difficult. But off the road, he goes. And without looking up, not noticing he's heading towards a falling cherry, Everett speeds his vehicle towards ice cream scoop.

Impromptu ramp.
It's how Vyv was able to jump a whole zone, and by all, that's small and crumbly, Everett's going to do it too. If only he had been looking up. The muscle car bumper is jettisoned on the lip of the scoop, he drives closer to the other side and then he sees it. Falling in slow motion.

Everything is in slow-motion.
His mouth opens slowly, "Mmnnnoooo", eyes go large. The cherry hits the ice cream scoop handle and like a catapult, the black licorice car to vaulted, sent tumbling end-over-end into the air. Inside, slowly, Everett closes his mouth, his cheeks bulge, "Hurk!" and he tries to hold down his Dream breakfast with the landscape spinning around outside his car.

Rather than losing control of his vehicle entirely, Byron's all hands on deck upon his steering wheel helps to ease himself from running into that pecan and probably ruining his car in the process. It takes a lot of effort to regain this control and he can feel himself leaning into the direction that he needs to go-- which, in vehicles like this, it probably makes sense. They seem flimsy and not as robust as actual cars!

He doesn't get the momentum that he wants, but he didn't crash out either and that was always a plus. In the last race, he'd spun out so many times that he barely left the start. That said, he was no longer in the lead and the path before him isn't a clear one. Next time he comes to one of these things, he's bringing a damn tank.

Not fully trusting her somewhat-fixed, almost-round tire, Nicole takes it a bit easier for a moment. Good thing too, for all that she is seeing in front and behind her. Sometimes, the safety of middle-of-the-pack suits her just fine. Like in Claymation racing dreams. She finds herself singing along to the song playing in the stands and bopping along cheerily like she's an elf with a dream! A dream of winning the race! Never give up your dreams, little claymation elf Nicole! You can be a dent---race winner if you really want to be, someday!

Okay. Okay! Better! We have that traction now! ...sort of! Vyv gets his speed finally increasing, but not so much as he'd like. Not so much that Everett doesn't take a massive lead. That gets growling again. This cannot stand!

Lilith finally gets some traction and starts rolling after her vehicle seems to sputter and pass the faery sugar bug from the engine grate or gears or whever it ended up to interfere and get smashed. It doesn't help, though, that she was gunning and braking in turns to try and get the car to behave, though, so she's pretty far behind with Nic-- oh wait, there's Nicole going past her!

While Lilith isn't always a bad sport when it comes to competition, she certainly doesn't like being last and she can't see anyone behind her, so that means... tactics. Ahead, there's a dripping overhead of ice cream snow hanging from a streetlight peppermint stick or something and Lilith stars smashing down on her gumdrop horn when near and underneath it with Nicole ahead. It's kind of like causing a mini dairy spill of frozen goodness, but it's slippery! Also her horn is super annoying at this point, not so cute.

Dodging a variety of nutty toppings, M&Ms, Cherries and whatever the hell people put on their sundaes aside from chocolate syrup and whipped cream, Byron's momentum begins to slow. He's being more cautious with every turn, wheeling around these obstacles and trying to power his way through all the rest of the sprinkles that continue to fall from the sky like a flock of seagulls just shit rainbow turds all over them. Unlike those, however, these probably taste pretty decent.

Somewhere in the distance, he notices a bunch of ravenous Ginger Bread men try to make short work of someone's car. It reminds him of the battle he was in recently against an axe-wielding gingerbread men and sun fruit cakes. Yeah, he's gonna try and avoid that area.

Nicole is humming and bouncing along in her blue and white, Winter Wonderland candy Kart with little claymation puffs of smoke coming out of the tailpipe when Lilith decides to play the Miser of the group. Snowman tires hit that dairy spill and she goes slip sliding all around, doing a slow motion 360 with the stop-action animation of someone caught by surprise; mouth opening slow as she starts to call it "whooooahmypopsicles!" and holds onto her hair as if it might fly away.

Lyric isn't aware of exactly the devastation the cookie crew brings, but she had seen them go by and she had cheered them on. "Go Gingy Go!" Their little cotton candy hair stays in place, miraculously, but Lyric gets sprinkled and it slows her down considerably. Payback and all that. It sucked, but she just laughs and eats some more of her car, the graham cracker roof with icing on it. A little piece of that.

With a solid landing beside the track once more, the lead he had evaporating quickly, Everett's car comes down with a solid splat. The driver inside opens the door, bends his head down and peels off his helmet causing his long black hair to spill out, covering the look of deep nausea.

"Hurk," Everett dry heaves again. Just as the first of the pygmy horde arrives. "Quit it, you little shit stains," he grouses, wrapping his large mitt over the nearest ankle biter and squeezing. While the gingerbread body falls lifeless in his hand, Everett looks up when he spots more of them. So many more. Meep. With a careless chuck, Everett pulls the car door closed again and turns the car ov-- turns the car over and puts the pedal to the metal.

Alison guns it, trying her best to get back into contention after falling behind. She makes some good progress, but she realizes that her brand new marshmallow tires have picked up some sprinkles along the way somewhere. That's gonna cause a problem, isn't it?

Everett's twist of fate with the gingerbread men makes her blink. Weird! They'd just helped her, but now they're messing with the gorilla? Well, she's not gonna complain. Vrooom.

Vyv preferred the start of this, frankly, when he had that (n)ice strong lead! Now he's having to hobnob with the hoi poll-- I mean, fight it out with the others. Look, sportsmanship is one thing, but winning by a lot has its own charms, okay? Not that he experienced them last time either, come to think of it.

You know what else has its charms, though? Watching Everett's landing and the gingerbread attackers. It's not that he particularly dislikes Everett, even if they are rivals in confectionary provision. It's that that's funny. He's definitely not giggling at all behind that suppressed smile. Nope.

Maybe it's karma after Lilith pulls off a dick move on Nicole with making an ice cream tumble distraction by way of annoying horn vibration. She hits a chunk in the ice that has razor sharp edges and has to have a stall and idle for replacement before she's set free to go again, way behind everyone else.

After looking behind herself, though... she's losing a little of the easier, good nature she had while so far behind and it's starting to make her nervous with such a gap between herself and Byron with him out of sight. What if he hits a pack of faeries too and-- shut up and drive, Lilith. It's hard to not think this is somehow secretly a horrible dream in disguise given the way hers usually tend to go or turn.

She finishes crunching up that hard candy stick of turn signal she was eating on and tries to focus so she's not buried under sugar in some form.

The black licorice car continues to build up steam, but it's definitely seen better days. Some people are hard on their make-believe toys. Without a scoop either, and with sprinkles dug deep into the thick chocolate covering of his Wagon Wheel and Oreo tyre combination, the car has even more problems. And it isn't, exactly, the driver, who was in good spirits. Now he's shedding gingerbread men from the hood and the ceiling of the black car, leaving a trail of Lyric's fan club behind in his wake, letting them fend for themselves. And when he sees it, the division down the waffle cone and the brown liquid come pouring, Everett's eyes open wide and not for the first time.
"Oh, Fffffffudge!"

Those shiny bits of sugar serve as reflectors and somewhat like mirrors and Lyric can see the sludgy fudgeslide! While the graham crackers and all might be super good dipped in it, she doesn't want to slow down and ruin her cotton candy hair! Suddenly her own Gingy's are trying to slow her down too! Or just totally fanboying or fan girling, who knows? She gets a little sideways, slows her down, but she manages to forge on, losing a place or two in the rankings! Oh no! She doesn't seem to mind, she shares cotton candy with the gingies in the process, tossing it out to be shared.

Well, so much for vroom. Alison just peters along, just barely making her way into the gingerbread maze. A snarl creeps onto her face at her car's poor performance (definitely not her fault with the bad shifting, the going too fast earlier getting sprinkles all over her tires, or bad driving), and she reaches forward to give her licorice car a good slap. C'mon, you. Go fast, do the thing.

As if surviving the dairy spill wasn't enough, now Nicole and the others are trying to outrun molten lava fudge! "AAAAAAAAAhhhhhhh. I'm never eating dessert again! Until like, next week! Stay back, foul fudge of fright!"