The letters highlighted in red spell out "RUSSIA" (the location shown is a cathedral in St. Petersburg), and the numbers say "PINES". Predictably, someone's already got the first clue:
...there are a lot of shrines in Japan. Are crescent moons and swords motifs for anyone in particular?
Going by what I've seen stalking the #CipherHunt hashtag, people are guessing the shrine is the Kanda Myojin, which Hirsch tweeted about visiting at some point past. Meanwhile, the crescent moon and sword seems to be a Masonic symbol:
Aaand looks like they've found the second clue too, because Gravity Falls fandom. According to Twitter, it says: EDIT: Which apparently means 400 Ponce de Leon Ave in Atlanta! People move fast.
So some people have gotten their copies of Journal 3 early, and are posting spoilers in the relevant tags on tumblr. Be advised, and avoid them if you so choose. I do not so choose, and I have something to say. Spoiler: JOURNAL 3 SPOILERS, me unapologetically disagreeing with Alex Hirsch about his own television show, Ford Controversy, this is really just venting So here's a page from Journal 3: http://221bcecil.tumblr.com/post/147773604300/oh-ford-of-course-hes-gonna-give-you-the "I spent so long thinking [Stan] was a selfish jerk, and he turned out to be the most selfless man I've ever met in any dimension. If I'm totally honest, I must admit that he's a hero and I'm... a hero's brother." Unsurprisingly, this pretty much comports with what Alex said in his post-finale interview. Much like said interview, it royally pisses me off. It's just so one-sided! I mean, yes, Stan's sacrifice was extraordinarily heroic and selfless, and yes, Ford's view of Stan prior to that incident was rather narrow and biased. Nevertheless, the way Alex frames it, both when speaking as himself in the interview and when speaking as Ford in the Journal, it's as if Ford was completely wrong to ever view Stan as selfish. But Ford has a completely valid basis for having felt that way! Stan is capable of tremendous selfishness, and Ford has experienced this side of his brother firsthand! Ford, unlike the audience, doesn't know for certain that Stan didn't deliberately sabotage his college plans all those years ago, and in any case he must remember the utterly callous and dismissive way Stan reacted to learning that Ford's dream wasn't going to pan out. He showed absolutely no concern for Ford's feelings in that situation; all that mattered to him was his goal. (Don't think that I lack sympathy for Stan here; I recognize that he was in a painful situation and he responded the way he did because he had emotional issues that it's not his fault he had. That doesn't make Ford's feelings any less valid.) Admittedly, that all happened a long time before the era of the show, and Ford should have been more open to considering the possibility that Stan had changed in the intervening years. Ford also judged Stan for opening the portal, which is a tricky and controversial thing because it was simultaneously a deeply unselfish act (prioritizing Ford's well-being over his own comfort and freedom for 30 years) and a horrifyingly selfish act (prioritizing his own emotional needs over the entire flippin' universe). I'm not saying Ford never made any mistakes in his relationship with Stan. I just wish Alex wouldn't act as though Ford's resentment of Stan was completely unjustified. And here's another thing: FORD IS A HERO. Whether or not you think he went about it the right way, he was prepared to risk his life to save the universe. He withstood torture for days (we don't know exactly how long it took to build that robot, but even with disbelief appropriately suspended I don't think it was less than a week) rather than hand Bill the key to victory. If it hadn't been for the metal plate in his head, he would have sacrificed himself in Stan's place. If Alex Hirsch wants me to think that a character who does these things isn't a hero because he had a grudge against his brother, then Alex Hirsch is wrong. (Insert Death of the Author-related wordplay here.)
@soulsuckingisaacnewton AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRGH. Spoiler: spoilery and don't expect this not to sound like meta written by me, whose goal in life is to give Ford Pines everything he ever wanted I've rather been dreading this since the very last part of the ending. Honestly, I didn't think the way their reconciliation and boat trip was handled was all that great. Neither Hirsch nor the Stan-stans are willing to acknowledge that actually sabotaging someone's college chances--whether or not it was intentional--and blaming them for ruining your life because they didn't stick with a dream you came up with as 12 year olds--and then spending 30 years of your life risking the entire universe to rebuild a portal you were told might destroy the universe and turning it back on when you have 12 year old relatives staying in your house--is nothing but 100% messed up codependent behaviour. Stan doesn't have a single decent adult relationship in his life because he arranged his entire life first around Ford and then the hole Ford left in it and that is not Ford's fucking fault. And throwing a tantrum over a 'thank you' when they can literally see the whites of your eyes? I like Stan, but I write him as a lot less of an asshole than Hirsch did in the final episode. He does not need Ford to go off alone with him and fulfil his childhood dream, he needs to get an actual grownup adult life with OTHER PEOPLE in it.
Spoiler: Journal 3 spoilers Journal 3 josses a lot of things in Weirdmageddon Tango (as one might expect), but surprisingly, one of them is NOT the fact that Dimension 52 is where a lady healer put a metal plate in Stanford Pines' head and taught him how to fight Bill. She's not a cat, and he didn't marry her, but our record of predicting the weirdest shit in the show is still pretty much in place... Also, @Acey, the ending of that book makes me take issue with your contention that it's always wrong to say you know someone's characters better than they do :p (This is not the first time I have deeply and sincerely loved a character whose creator obviously didn't, and it probably won't be the last, although this was the most ...visceral... instance.)
Spoiler: Journal 3 'Spoilers', LOL This is a fun book but it cannot actually even remotely possibly be the book that Dipper had in canon. I realise that the additions at the end allegedly made by Ford were supposed to have been done after Bill's defeat. But there's too much very detailed information in the parts of the book that Dipper actually had during the period of the show for this to have been the book that he had in his possession. Otherwise he would have known the exact nature of the Author's relationship with Bill and the story of the portal and Ford's relationship with Fiddleford, even though he wouldn't have known that the Author was Ford or that "F" was McGucket--though he would instantly have known the laptop belonged to Ford's assistant. He wouldn't have been surprised at finding the Shapeshifter. There's a lot of stuff in the book that can't have been in the canonical journal because Dipper pored over the thing and practically memorised it, yet he didn't know about this stuff when he encountered it. Also I can't seem to find the Cycloptopus page, which is disappointing because I really wanted to know more about the sushi they made of it...
Spoiler: journal 3 reply I'm pretty sure there's a journal page visible onscreen in Dreamscaperers that reveals more about the Author's relationship with Bill than Dipper appeared to know when it came up in The Last Mabelcorn. It's plausible that Ford wouldn't remember exactly what he wrote after 30 years. Less plausible that Dipper wouldn't remember after obsessing over the book for months on end. I've been wondering how they were going to avoid retroactively creating giant plot holes with this thing. I guess the answer is "they didn't". All kind of disappointing for a show that's so widely praised for its excellent continuity and foreshadowing. I think that page is in Journal 2. (For the record, I haven't actually read the whole thing yet, but I have been actively seeking out tidbits since people started getting their copies early. Nobody need worry about spoilerizing me.)
Spoiler: Funny you should mention it Later I found a section in the book where we're told that there were pages torn out of the journal Dipper found, and that even though Bill burned them, they reappeared with all damage restored after he left. Apparently that's their handwavium. I think it's pretty stupid. I could understand Ford tearing up certain pages to prevent the information getting out--IF we hadn't already seen what he did when Stan suggested burning the book! Ford would never have destroyed his own work! Now, from an occult perspective nothing that wasn't damaged by Bill should have been restored when he was banished. But if Bill had done it, why not just destroy the whole thing? And Fidds had already outied. Also, nice way to gloss over Fidds leaving his wife and kid by having him talk about how much he loves them all the time while shacked up with Ford and having Ford say romance confuses him in a way that could be read as aro if it weren't for all the previous canon about his massive thirst. Maybe aro but not ace? IDK censors or wat. The reason the end upsets me, though, is that while it clearly isn't true that Ford is selfish and unable to sacrifice for love--did Alex forget that he volunteered to sacrifice himself first--and the world--for the kids, and Stan volunteered because he figured out a scam that would save everyone else, which is just as sacrificial but not more, especially given that this was a betrayal of Ford's stated ideals, to put his own loves over the rest of humanity? Cause that is a sacrifice too, albeit a bad one! While the things Ford says about himself aren't true, what makes me cry are that they are things that Stan told him about himself that are not true, but because this man carries the guilt of the universe on his shoulders (for actions he wouldn't have taken if not betrayed) I can see him coming to believe them at a time in his life when what he most needs is to absolve himself of being a human being, a very lonely sperg with PTSD whose wrong actions were usually the result of bad information or out of control brainweird.
Spoiler: Think of this as more a sanity than a spoiler tag; no actual spoilers contained, just snark While reading this book, I was continually shocked by how much the last part resembles essays by people I blocked on Tumblr for writing lots of those essays, converted to first person with global search and replace. I see no point in spending much time on Tumblr arguments; the structure of the platform is designed to produce echo chambers and dogpiles, so I live my Tumblr life in the We Love Stanford echo chamber where people mostly just argue about his sexual orientation. And sometimes fight about The Bad Ships, but I don't care about that as long as everyone understands I am not taking sides.
My feels can be summed up as "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA". But that's just a me thing.
