The Chronicles of Cisco

Okay Fangirls and Fanboys, I have decided, after much deliberation (but really because Kamilla keeps begging me to “get with the times”) that it is time for this blog… to be REBORN. Like a caterpillar becomes a beautiful butterfly… or like Taylor Swift whenever she releases a new album. You get it. 

Basically, it’s time to take the Chronicles of Cisco to the next level. And that level is… 

INSTAGRAM. 

I’m told that Instagram is the schway place to be in 2019 for an influencer such as myself. And yeah, I realize I’m nine years late to the party, but so what? At least I showed up. Besides, work keeps me pretty busy during the week in case you hadn’t noticed. 

Anyway, I’d like to thank you, my loyal readers, for following along with these here Chronicles. Your support has meant the world to me and I hope you’ll continue to stay in touch on the new platform. Change, as they say, is the spice of life, so follow @cwtheflash for more “hot” takes from me, Cisco – aka, your favorite member of Team Flash.

Yes, finally! I’ve been DYING for the chance to write on Cisco’s blog since I got here. Blogs are so 2004, amirite? LOL! (Did I say that right? I still don’t get Internet slang… or memes… or hashtags… But I do love gifs! You better believe I’m gonna bring those back in 2049.) 

Anyway, I’m stuck here in Cisco’s Workshop while everyone else is trying to find Cicada II; even though we already have a perfectly good way to find her – ME. I get that my Mom and Dad are just worried about me and yeah, things may have gotten a little out of hand last time I went all in on my connection with Grace, but don’t they realize that it’s different now? That I’m different now. 

I can’t be too mad at them, though. I did kinda show up unannounced from thirty years in the future. That was probably a lot to process… And I have definitely gotten in the way and grifed things up more than once. Mom was (is?) right, I am excessive. But they’ve been so schway through it all. I need to remember that I ran back to 2018 so that I could spend time with my parents. So I can’t get mad at them for parenting me. 

Shrap, they’re calling for me. Gotta run!

It’s that time of year again, my dear Readers!  That glorious time of year, for all of Team Flash, when all seems lost and my anxiety spikes!  Yay! Man, what I wouldn’t give to go a whole year without a mega villain trying to take over the world…  My collection of ceramic Hummel figurines… I wouldn’t give those.  You’d have to pry them from my cold, dead hands!!!

This Cicada / Cicada II situation has been THE WORST.  You know how it is, just when you think you’ve caught the bad guy, another one from the future shows up.  Classic! It’s because of these Cicadomorphas that I had to perform the most dangerous task of my life today – I met with BREACHER to see if he had a tracking device we could use.  Obviously he didn’t!  He just lured me there to try and kill me (again!) over the whole Gypsy break-up.  Should’ve seen that one coming, Cisco!

As terrible as the Breacher meet-up was, it wasn’t as terrible as the fact that I wasn’t here for Caitlin, my best friend, when her dad was killed.  I should have been here.  I could have helped.  I feel like such a fool for going on a wild goose chase when I should have been here with my friends.  Thanks a lot, Cicada Dos, you big, bad, bug!  Can’t wait until we kick your butt to the curb!

Woof, what a day.  Nora’s giant truth bomb (she’s working with Thawne, WHAT THE SHRAP?!) hit like 8,000 comically giant ACME anvils dropped from the top of Mount Everest.  Nora, our #1 fangirl, mini West-Allen, working with the enemy?!  My brain… can’t… compute.

I’d like to take a moment here to thank Sherloque for the heads up.  NOT. Apparently Basil of Baker Street has been Great Mouse Detective-ing this whole time and didn’t care to loop anyone else in.  I’m not usually a “pro spoiler” kinda guy, but a simple “Bonjour, Team Flash.  Blah, blah, blah, Cisco has the most luxurious hair, right? Also, Young Nora is working with your greatest enemy” would have been nice.

If my brain hurts thinking about this, I can’t imagine how Barry feels.  How are you supposed to react when you find out your daughter from the future has been in cahoots with your own personal Voldemort since Day One?  Not even the stupid Book of Ralph can help solve this one.

We’ve all been through a lot together, but this one… it really rocked us.  How are we supposed to bounce back from this?  Leaving the suggestion box open for any and all advice…

First things first, I’d like to give a shout out to Cisco for letting me take over his blog again (thanks, pal!). Second, welcome back to the Daily* Dibny! Let’s get down to business – Of all things to miss, I had to miss a giant land shark fight a giant psychic gorilla?! Not to be a Dibny Downer but that isn’t something that you can just see any day. Heck, you can’t even find that on the Internet. Nobody thought to document this?! It looks like we’ll just file this in the “Great Fights I Wish I Had Seen” chapter of the Book of Ralph. 

You might think that dedicating an entire chapter of a book to match-ups that I wish I could witness is silly but I’ll kindly remind you that you’re reading The Book of Ralph, NOT the book of whoever you are, buddy. The only guideline I use while curating this list is that once I think of a fantasy match I need to write it down immediately. Any changes or additions/logic policing to said match-up have to be added on the page and approved by the editor. Now, it’s my great pleasure to unveil to you the ULTIMATE list of Fights-that-I-wish-I-would-have-seen (curated and edited by R. Dibny): 

King Shark vs Grodd 

Shaq vs Jackie Chan (call it Shaq vs Jack) 

Me vs Stretch Armstrong (talk about a squash; sorry Stretch) 

Hulk Hogan vs The Incredible Hulk 

The guy behind the counter on Wednesdays at CC Jitters vs The closer from Big Belly Burger 

Robots fighting each other (as many as possible) 

Aliens fighting humans but in a WWE kind of way not a “we’re going to kill your entire planet” kind of way 

Bruce Lee vs Lee Bruce (the guy who has that tax office downtown) 

Much like myself this list is constantly growing. Who knows how long the list will be!? You know, I might have to just make this it’s own book and I’ll call it…Ralph’s Rumbles!

 DOs and DON’Ts when working in an abandoned arctic lab: 

After being stuck up here for weeks, I’m really feeling like my time working on this meta cure is wrapping up. While I’m grateful for all the peace and quiet and not having to worry about Sherloque hogging my computer all the time, being up here for days on end can be…. well, let’s just say the struggle is definitely REAL. 

So, should you find yourselves working in a former black ops site, here’s my list of DOs and DON’Ts to make it a little easier for you: 

1) Don’t forget to set up WIFI. This place hasn’t seen a mop in 20 years let alone have any of its systems upgraded. 

2) Do bring your favorite game system and definitely remember to re-up your STEAM subscription. Make sure to bring some variety in your gaming to keep it fresh: A little “God of War” here, some Call of Duty, and maybe a couple hours of Resident Evil…wait, people trapped in a creepy lab with monsters… scratch that last one. 

3) Definitely DON’T watch “The Thing” or any horror film set in a winter-like setting. 

4) Do pack the essentials: A couple of family packs of ramen in a cup, a few weeks worth of Twizzlers, and the last 5 unread issues of the “Fluid Mechanics Monthly.” 

5) Do bring all of your important exercise equipment: Resistance bands, Kettle Bells, Yoga M…HA! I was making sure you were still reading. Why on earth would I bring any of that? Put this firmly in the “Don’t” column. 

6) Do figure out how to sign up for that Multiversal Delivery service Sherloque uses. The elutriation rotors on my centrifuge keep wearing out and the ones made on Earth-2 are damn near indestructible! 

7) Don’t be distracted by the very smart, talented, and all-around awesome bartender/ photographer that you’ve been texting with for the past couple of weeks…even if she is trying to set up a date with you. That’s something you can worry about when you’re back in town… hopefully soon.

When the winds of distress are blowing a strong sense of panic through the air (mental note: save that line for future poetry book) who does the city turn to? Well Team Flash of course! With Cicada targeting metas across the city, it’s been up to us to warn the potential victims and put a stop to Cicada’s crimes. It’s been a constant race against the clock and we decided to split up duties – I got saddled with warning everyone about the attacks. No pressure. 

So I began to think – what are the best ways to reach a large amount of people in a short amount of time? The obvious answers were out – billboard? Too pricey. Press conference? Too much to coordinate last minute. I had to think outside the box and the clock was ticking. I decided the most practical option would be to take a page out of my man John Cusak’s book: time to warn the city with a giant boom box. 

It’s often said that the world works in mysterious ways. Moments before I was able to put my plan into action I saw what could only be described as a sign from a higher power – in beautiful cursive letters, carefully crafted by a small airplane: MARRY ME, KATE. That’s when it dawned on me – I can write my warning in the sky! Moment’s later it also dawned on me that I have no idea how they do that. But it’s like the old saying goes: if failure isn’t an option, then you can only choose success. I’ll make a giant banner and attach it to the back of an airplane. Then I’ll circle the city, warning everyone and preventing Cicada’s nefarious plans. Ralph, you’ve done it again!

I hustled over to the airport where I was able to hire a small plane for next to nothing (it might not have been legal but let’s not look too hard at that – it was for the GREATER GOOD!) and have them attach my banner. 15 minutes later we’re soaring above Central City, my banner in tow and a victory in our sights. When we landed, there was a package waiting for me. I opened it to find…my banner? But we just flew with that! I turn and wouldn’t you know it – we just flew a BOGO ad for Big Belly Burger around town. No wonder this was so cheap… 

I have some explaining to do…

Okay, hi, Iris West-Allen here subbing in for Cisco while he’s on Earth-38 (dealing with the whole Barry/Oliver body swap thing).  He wants me to update his “blog” while he’s gone…  Oh, man, I can’t believe I got roped into doing this…  I didn’t even know Cisco had a blog.  I can see why he never told any of us.  Dude writes about his feelings WAY too much.  He needs to follow the classic inverted pyramid we journalists follow…

Anyway, don’t have a lot of time here because, hate to break it to you, Cisco, there are way more important things going on than keeping your Live Journal, or whatever this is, up to date.  So here’s your update:

- Barry and Oliver swapped bodies

- They’re on Earth-38 trying to fix it

- Cisco went to bring them back because…

- A giant robot is attacking Central City

Pretty standard stuff for us to be dealing with, right?

Actually, since Cisco usually talks about his feelings on here, I guess I’ll talk about mine for a second – Nora and I have finally bonded and I’m loving every second I get to spend with her.  It’s been so much fun getting to know my daughter from 30 years in the future.  It’s pretty schway (that’s a hip future thing).  How many mothers can say that?

Okay, signing off and going to get my husband back.  My real husband.

Wow.  After all this time, we finally reached 100 episodes…of my long-running YouTube gamer channel: “All your Cisco are Belong 2 Us”.

So many hours of me yelling into a microphone while driving in a stolen convertible in the city streets of San Andreas, crying tears of pure joy paragliding over the Kingdom of Hyrule, or collecting valuable resources in a post-apocalyptic Earth…I don’t remember which game that was.  I’m just realizing there’s an usually high amount of games taking place on a post-apocalyptic Earth.  Kind of funny considering we narrowly avoid the apocalypse every other week at this point.

Reaching this milestone was no easy task.  There were many hardships along the way, like The Great Debate of 2013: Buy the PS4 or the Xbox One? It wasn’t really a debate since I bought both as soon as they went on sale.  Just last week, I forgot to save my gameplay on Red Dead 2 and lost ALL of my progress for the day.  I may or may not have cried during that week’s episode.  

That’s not important.

What’s important is that we made it to 100 episodes, baby!  Thank you to all the true fans for your support throughout the year.  Oh, that’s right.  I started the channel last May.  What? You thought I’ve been doing this for like, five years or something?  That would be crazy.

Hello Diary, it’s me Ralph. If you don’t recognize me it’s because I’m writing this from Cisco’s laptop (don’t tell him that but he also deserves it for leaving his personal laptop unlocked at the lab). I know it’s been a bit since I last wrote but can you blame me? I’ve been busy stretching around Central City. Let’s not beat around the bush: I’m writing because I’ve got a problem: Ragdoll.

I thought I was over my fear of clowns but ever since Ragdoll popped up all these emotions are rushing back. Like that one time in third grade where the clown at the school festival laughed at me because I spilled a soda on my pants. Or the time in high school when I went over to my crush’s house to watch IT and I cried the whole time (and I love Tim Curry!). You know now that I’m writing and thinking about this I’m also remembering the time that I signed up for clown school …okay I need to stop before I go back to my dark place.

Therein lies my problem. It’s very clear to me that everyone needs my help in taking down Ragdoll. It is not very clear to them that I am deathly afraid of clowns. Diary, what should I do? I need to be there for the team but seriously clowns freak me the H. E. double hockey sticks out. Whatever I decide – I have to make sure that nobody ever finds out about this phobia. Well at least the embarrassing stories, they can know I’m afraid of clowns I guess. Wait…That’s it! You know what, diary? You’ve done it again!

Tomorrow, I’m going to go to the team and be straight with them. I’m going to tell them that I’m super terrified of clowns and all that they stand for but I’m willing to try and get past that for the good of team. I’m glad I took the time to revisit you, diary. I’ve missed you. Perhaps I’ll turn this into a more weekly thing? We’ll see. All I know is that I have to make sure that none of this ever gets out – that could get ugly. Also, remind me to talk to Cisco tomorrow about his laptop. I have no idea how to work this email program and I’m not sure why there isn’t a “send” button but “publish” instead. Whatever, they’re always changing how words are used with these things.

Thanks for the advice, Diary.

- Ralph