History Literature / GravityFallsJournal3

* TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers: The comments on the back of the book. The first two are genuine praises from Creator/GuillermoDelToro and Creator/RLStine and the other comment is Grunkle Stan saying "This book is amazing! [=BUY IT TWICE!!=]"

* RiddleForTheAges: Despite many references to the other two journals and the fact that the book only has a third of the Universal Portal blueprints, Journal 3 is the only book so far to have been made real-life, leaving us to wonder what occurred in the six years prior.

* BirdsOfAFeather: Dipper writes on his entry on "Dreamscaperers" that one of the memories he saw was of Stan marrying a Las Vegas waitress, Marilyn Rosenstein. It lasted 48 hours because she was just trying to steal his car. Dipper wonders if Stan had really found his soul mate that time.

* ForWantOfANail:
** One of the dimensions Ford passed through was a parallel timeline where Stan ''didn't'' knock Ford into the portal. Its version of Ford reunited with [=McGucket=], got the portal to work without any risk of allowing entry from the Nightmare Realm, and became well-regarded for his work in the scientific community. This was where he got that {{BFG}} he tried to use in "Weirdmageddon Part 1", from [=Parallel!McGucket=].
** Had Ford actually decoded that secret message he found, [[spoiler:not only that he would have found out that Bill was just using him to jumpstart the apocalypse and stopped building the portal, Fiddleford would never have founded the Society of the Blind Eye and lost his sanity. However, Stan would have still been homeless, and running from the authorities and the Mystery Shack wouldn't exist]].
*** Had Dipper decoded that secret message, [[spoiler:he would've had some doubts about keeping the dimensional rift a secret, and decided to tell Mabel and Grunkle Stan about said rift and what it could do. This would have prevented Weirdmageddon from happening, and Blendin wouldn't have become an outlaw. But Weirdmageddon gave Stan and Ford the push they needed to reconcile and start over]].
** [[spoiler:If Time Baby and the entire Time Police hadn't kept on teasing Blendin Blandin for losing Globnar, Blendin would never have made a deal with Bill Cipher. Thus, Bill wouldn't have used his body to cause Weirdmageddon. On the other hand, this would have led to Dipper accepting Ford's offer to become his apprentice. Mabel would have returned home all alone. Stan and Ford's relationship would have still been strained. And Time Baby would still rule future earth with an iron fist]].
** It's unclear if Ford would have been able to expose the Northwests for who they were before he met Bill and worked on the Portal. But if he had, Pacifica and her family might've gone down a different path.
** If Ford agreed to Fiddleford's offer to get his research published and abandon the Portal, things would have gone ''very'' differently for them.
** After the events of the GrandFinale, Dipper ponders on what would have happened if Stan and Ford didn't fight and the Zodiac worked. Soos believes they would have gotten superpowers, but Dipper doesn't believe it.

** [[spoiler:If Time Baby and the entire Time Police hadn't kept on teasing Blendin Blandin for losing Globnar, Blendin would never have made a deal with Bill Cipher. Thus, Bill wouldn't have used his body to cause Weirdmageddon. On the other hand, this would have led to Dipper accepting Ford's offer to become his apprentice. Mabel would have returned home all alone. Stan and Ford's relationship would still have been strained. And Time Baby would still rule future earth with an iron fist]].

* TemptingFate: Upon noticing Agent Trigger spotted the journal, Dipper writes "I hope he doesn't ta..." The next page features Trigger's notes. Trigger's last note is about how people will never forget about the arrest they're about to make in "A Tale of Two Stans". Ford uses Fiddleford's memory-erasing ray to make the agents forget.

* IntimateArtistry: Most of Dipper's drawings portray scenes or creatures as they happened, but his first drawing of Wendy, before he properly realizes he's in love with her in "The Inconveniencing", notably has her smiling with her hair blown in a slight breeze, a few leaves trailing her around. Later, in an entry written after "Into the Bunker", he bemoans his "impossible crush on an impossible girl" next to a beautifully crafted picture of Wendy sitting in profile in front of a forest backdrop. Tellingly, a smaller but similar side shot of Pacifica is drawn on a page recounting the events of "Northwest Mansion Mystery", being one of couple hints in that entry that Dipper had a crush on her.

** A movie called [[Film/BackToTheFuture "Return Backwards To The Past Again 3"]] is mentioned. Apparently, it's required viewing in [[spoiler:the Time Police training]].

* ActorAllusion

** In the SpecialEdition underneath the Mothman picture there are notes about other bug creatures, one of them is [[spoiler: "Man-Spider": [[Creator/JKSimmons I've]] still never seen one of these. [[Film/SpiderManTrilogy GET ME PHOTOS OF]] [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons MAN-SPIDER]]!]]

** The ''Compsognathus'' in the book is based on outdated designs (i.e. two-fingered and scaly), never mind the fact ''Compsognathus'' wasn't discovered in North America let alone Oregon. Of course, none of the other dinosaurs in the show were accurate either. Interestingly, the book seems to allude to the fact that certain dinosaurs were bird-like, by having the Compy show traits of a ThievingMagpie.

** Fiddleford runs into a young Blind Ivan at the carnival, who wants to forget his life.

* TheCloudcuckoolanderWasRight: In his entry on the Lilliputians, Dipper mentions that Soos claimed the mini-golf, [=ATM=], and other things were run by tiny people, and then wonders what else he's right about.

** Had Ford actually decoded that secret message he found, [[spoiler: not only that he would have found out that Bill was just using him to jumpstart the apocalypse and stopped building the portal, Fiddleford would never have founded the Society of the Blind Eye and lost his sanity. However, Stan would have still been homeless, and running from the authorities and the Mystery Shack wouldn't exist]].
*** Had Dipper decoded that secret message, [[spoiler: he would've had some doubts about keeping the dimensional rift a secret, and decided to tell Mabel and Grunkle Stan about said rift and what it could do. This would have prevented Weirdmageddon from happening, and Blendin wouldn't have become an outlaw. But Weirdmageddon gave Stan and Ford the push they needed to reconcile and start over]].
** [[spoiler: If Time Baby and the entire Time Police hadn't kept on teasing Blendin Blandin for losing Globnar, Blendin would never have made a deal with Bill Cipher. Thus, Bill wouldn't have used his body to cause Weirdmageddon. On the other hand, this would have led to Dipper accepting Ford's offer to become his apprentice. Mabel would have returned home all alone. Stan and Ford's relationship would still have been strained. And Time Baby would still rule future earth with an iron fist]].

--> ''(Skull-shaped blot: Bunny. Mushroom cloud: Lollypop. Sword: Friendship wand)''\\

* PageTurnSurprise: After recounting the account of the portal test, the next two pages are [[spoiler: nigh-covered with black-ink scrawling, drawings of eyes, and red text spelling out "MY MUSE WAS A MONSTER", "I WAS A PUPPET", and "F WAS RIGHT"]].

* PoliceAreUseless: [[spoiler: In Blendin's secret message, instead of the Time Police planning out a strategy to take Bill Cipher down, [[MisplacedRetribution they all blamed Blendin for Time Baby's demise]]. This led to the Time Police chasing Blendin throughout time instead of apprehending the real culprit.]]

--> '''Dipper:''' [[spoiler:Mason.]] My real name is [[spoiler:Mason]].

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar

''Gravity Falls: Journal 3'' is a {{Defictionalization}} of Journal 3, the main [[GreatBigBookOfEverything research and reference journal]] used by the main characters in the popular Creator/DisneyChannel mystery/comedy animated series ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls''. The book was written by series creator Creator/AlexHirsch and writer Rob Renzetti, and illustrated by Andy Gonsalves.

** Dipper reveals his first name, [[spoiler:to both Ford and the audience, in an entry set between "The Last Mabelcorn" and "Dipper and Mabel vs. the Future". His real name is "Mason"]].

* INeverToldYouMyName: When Ford goes to meet the palm reader at the carnival, she calls him "Sixer". Ford was stunned that somehow she knew his childhood nickname.

** Mabel has a moment of this in her entry for "Bipper" where she felt like a jerk for not only taking the Journal without asking Dipper and being so obsessed with her play for her crush of the week she had no idea Dipper was possessed by Bill the entire time. She felt even more like crap when she discovered the note that heavily implies that if "Bipper" had destroyed the Journal he'd planned to [[PsychicAssistedSuicide jump off the water tower and make it look like Dipper went crazy]]. After realizing this, she writes a letter of apology to Dipper and says she owes him a week's worth of ice cream sandwiches.

* KickMePrank: Category 2 ghosts are pranksters who "Always have "Kick Me!" or "Possess Me!" signs they tape to your back".

* LaserGuidedAmnesia: We see the events that led [=McGucket=] to build the Memory Ray. It's implied that he used it even before starting the Society of the Blind Eye; Ford mentions seeing lumberjacks helping with the construction of the bunker, but when he questioned them later, they seem to have forgotten everything, and Ford wrote his earlier sighting as a hallucination.

* LovePotion: As seen in "The Love God", but notably the creepy moral quandaries about using a potion to force someone to like them are played with and ultimately averted. Mabel mentions that the Love God's potions aren't actually permanent. They only work for a few hours and act as more of a nudge between the two people under its effects. If the potion wears off and the two are still in love, ''then'' it's true love.

* MixAndMatchCritters: One creature mentioned is the Hawktopus, a bird with tentacles for talons and beak. It was deemed, "Too stupid to study."

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Ford had been fighting Bill Cipher during the events of "Not What He Seems", with the portal activating when he was mere inches away from destroying the triangle. Ford had to use a concussion grenade to keep the rest of the demons from following him through the gateway and entering our world. If Stan hadn't made the portal or Mabel hadn't activated (or had waited another couple minutes), Bill would have been destroyed much earlier.

* PrecisionFStrike: Ford writes "I'll be damned if I let that demon deceive me again" in one of his journal entries. Granted, it's not exactly a ''strong'' profanity, but given that the show never said anything worse than "heck," "gosh," or "darn," it still sticks out.

* RecognitionFailure: In the journal entries Dipper seems unable to recognize Wax Larry King, simply calling him "Suspenders Man", [[SeriesContinuityError despite knowing his name in the actual show]].

** As part of his MustMakeAmends towards Fiddleford, Ford encourages him to apply for patents on his inventions. Fiddleford does so, with Ford's help, and becomes wealthy as a result. While Ford could do the same, it's not what he wants so he decides to travel with his brother instead.

** And the third time is Fiddleford's accident with the portal, [[TheLastStraw leading to him quitting the project]] and starting his [[SanitySlippage memory gun inflicted degradation.]]

* SawStarWars27Times: According to Dipper, Mabel has seen "The Cranky Girl Who Did Chores in Spirit Town" eighty two times.

** According to the show, Soos' birthday is on July 13; the journal puts in on an undated entry between July 29 and August 22.

** When describing the events of "Northwest Mansion Mystery", Dipper mentions he was surprised at how decent a person Pacifica turned out to be. He then writes she "looks kind of okay in an evening dress, I guess". Then Dipper mentions that she smells nice and wonders if they had "some vibe going on," both of which are struck-out but still legible. Pacifica is also illustrated in the same angle, pose, and style as Wendy was earlier in the book. The blacklight edition includes a poem written by Mabel where she implies she noticed the aforementioned entry [[ShipperOnDeck and advises him to "start combing [his] hair"]].

*** A hidden message on the Level 1 page says [[{{Film/Casper}} "Can I keep you?"]]

** Apparently in one dimension Ford got a tattoo on his neck that said [[Music/SmashMouth "HEY NOW, I'M AN ALL-STAR!"]] He is deeply embarrassed by it.

* TheUnreveal: Alex Hirsch said in "Between the Pines" that Dipper's real name and Mabel's name had something in common. In the profile Dipper makes for himself, the first letter written in the namespace is a crossed out "M", so that "something in common" was the first letter. [[spoiler:He actually does reveal his name later, to Ford.]]

* WhamLine: In Ford's second section, he and Dipper are discussing the real theory of weirdness about the town, and bonding over their own abnormalities: Ford's six fingers and Dipper's birthmark. Suddenly, Dipper says [[spoiler:''his real name'']]:
--> Dipper: [[spoiler:Mason.]] My real name is [[spoiler:Mason]].

* YankTheDogsChain: [[spoiler:In Blendin Blandin's secret message, after Dipper and Mabel gave him back his job, Time Baby and the entire Time Police kept on teasing Blendin for losing Globnar to two kids. It got so bad that Blendin [[DealWithTheDevil made a deal with Bill Cipher to stop the teasing]]. This unfortunately led to Bill [[DemonicPossesion possesing Blendin]] to jumpstart Weirdmageddon.]]

* AllForNothing: [[spoiler:Blendin's letter to Dipper and Mabel explaining what happened to him and that he's okay. Ford never decoded it and Dipper and Mabel never see it, and then Ford throws the Journals into the Bottomless Pit, making his efforts moot.]]

* NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity: After the Woodstick Festival disaster caused by Stan's shoddy hot air balloon, Stan expressed no concern about the physical and psychological damage caused by it, claiming that "all press is good press".