Tyler wasn't a bad man. He didn't take any pleasure in all of this… unpleasantness. He didn't take any pleasure in taking the Pines to court. How could he? He had loved those kids and those weird but strangely attractive old men as much as the next townsfolk. After all, they had saved the entire town from destruction! But…
Well, Tyler loved the town. And he was doing his best to protect the people within it. There had been detractors, yes - Tyler was well supported, but even he had to accept there had been resistance at times. Nobody was perfect. Some of the problems people had just seemed outright picky.
Trying to build a giant pumanther statue in the high street?
Controversial.
Insisting all muscular men wear short shorts?
Not quite as controversial, but not as popular as those calves should have been.
The regular hate mail from the Northwests under a series of increasingly unconvincing pseudonyms?
Eh.
Or the hate male, a portly man in a fedora who kept turning up with very strict, often unpleasant ideas of how the town should be full of people wearing schoolgirl uniforms.
Just plain weird.
He knew there were some folks who didn't agree with his most important policies. Last year, Ford had told him, outright, that he thought the Never Mind All That act was a dangerous one. That pretending the weirdness didn't exist could only make it difficult to confront. That not warning people could be dangerous.
The result was only fourteen missing tourists. (Popular theory was that one had become the new gnome queen.) And what, three lawsuits? That was basically nothing. They'd all gotten thrown out. Who would believe their wife had been taken by funny little men with beards?
The diminutive little jean-shorts wearer drummed his fingers together and tented them as he looked over the stack of evidence they had bought him. He could still faintly smell fennel on his moustache. He could still hear the dreadful, hissing, roaring screams of the beast that had lurked under his town
He could still feel the vicious claws of that memory gun digging into his lobes, ripping out his thoughts and memories.
He could still feel the rumbling of buildings falling. Hear the explosion. See the giant, cavernous pit below Geron Street. He could still see, hear and feel it all, and it made him angry. The simple fact was he had been wronged.
And so had the town.
Since last year, they had believed - earnestly believed - that the Pines were heroes. And sure, technically, they had saved the day…
Against a creature that Ford had allowed into the dimension. Against a dimensional rift they had created. Against goodness knows how many bizarre creatures that the Pines had gone out looking for. Against magical forces that Stanford Pines had catalogued. And had never told a soul about. How could he have ever argued that deniability was dangerous?
He gritted his dainty little teeth and, for at least a moment, earnestly wished to cry. He didn't want this. But what else could he do? It was his job. It was his life. It was what he was meant to do - protect and serve.
No, no wait. No, that was Blubs and Durland. But he served and protected too. With outstanding mayor things! It wasn't all kissing baby heads and opening dollar stores! He was the town's protector, the innovator, the-
Dang, if only the Northwests hadn't made it so difficult. Nathaniel Northwest may have been a great man - Tyler most definitely admired those broad shoulders and piercing eyes - but his ideas and policies from day one were certainly… difficult. All of these ideas in the town charter, and only one tiny little man who glued a trucker cap to his head twelve years ago.
He was technically supposed to punch any giant eagles in the eye if they attempted to steal the town hall's pig. He'd never seen a giant eagle or punched anyone in the eye. They didn't even have a town hall pig. Not anymore. Not since the bacon shortage of 1964.
It was damned well unrealistic, is what it was.
He poured himself another glass of the hard stuff - Pitt extra sugar - and looked back down over the drawing of that terrible portal. Of the thing Ford Pines had built in what could only be seen as a mental break. Of a maniacal man with nothing to loose. A deceptively attractive man, certainly, but one who was willing to make a - a deal with that creature.
An equilateral monster. A killer geometric shape. A single-eyed interdimensional used car salesman with death on his mind. A - a -
Tyler huffed and put the thesaurus down.
This was proving to be the most difficult part of his career. He had only wanted to be the mayor because he thought the sash would match his eyes, and he'd already been thrown into turmoil repeatedly in his first year.
He had been ashamed when Pacifica and Wendy confronted him about those snow globes. His family's darkest moments. His unpleasant penance reminded him that nobody was perfect…
…Only his moustache and Manly Dan.
Hell. If they hadn't wiped his mind over it, he would have probably stewed on it for days. It hurt to come face to face with what his family had done to sell more souvenirs. It was a really difficult thing to confront - his family, his father, his loved ones had gone down into a supernatural night market and bought a curse? A curse?!
Now, he was being confronted by the fact that the Pines were worse. Worse than the Cutebikers ever were! Lying, hiding the truth, hiding what they learnt about their friends in the town! They lived and loved Gravity Falls, yet never bothered explaining why people suffered amnesia? Never bothered telling people about The Crawlspace? Never shared McGucket's story? Never bothered to teach them Soos's recipe for entomatadas?
They never even properly explained where Bill had come from. The entire town had suffered at the hands of that creature, had been left to an enormous climactic battle, had led to the Pines being the heroes…
And all this time, it was their fault it ever happened.
All this time, the town's struggles, the town's darkest moments, were due to- to- daddy issues!
Yet he felt bad. He knew he was justified, but it felt so wrong . They weren't megalomaniacs like Gideon. They weren't serial vandals or outright disrespectful or even difficult to talk to. Hell, they only did half as much shoplifting now the Grunkles were wealthier.
They didn't seem like bad people.
They never… really seemed like bad people.
And yet, as Tyler looked at the piles of evidence that Blubs and Durland had brought in, he had no argument. How could he? It - this - was just the right thing to do.
It had to be.