Mayor Alastair MacDonaldBy KaleighName: On the event of my birth, my parents thought to Christen me Alastair Conroy MacDonald, eponymous of my father’s much revered uncle.
Nickname/Alias: People just call me Alastair, though I have been known to answer to the occasional “SuperMac” for reasons which will be referenced much later in this applicating essay. However, in light of present circumstances, I believe “DI” or Alistair should suit us both fine.
DOB: 5 November, 1957. I suppose this makes me a bit crusty or untrustworthy, but never you mind. There’s sticky, awkward youth and honesty in my bosom yet untapped.
Gender: I have the soft, squishy, lovely, dangly bits of a man, but the soothing, comforting soul of a human.
Job: Detective Inspector within the investigatory establishment which polices the zoanthropic community, if you please.
Animal: A feline of the sort that has been introduced to the common household, yet should never be referred to as “domesticated”; the cat resents it through and through.
Power Level: Well, you see, I’m as sweet and fluffy as a kitten, but if you’re going to test me, I may have to show you that I do eat other, more troublesome alpha males for breakfast. And not (just) in that smutty kinky way!
Mindset: I suppose it depends. My cheerful, humble self at work longs to bring peace and order to an otherwise murky and unhappy establishment, in which case my expertise is called to be of a masculine and aggressive sort—though I dare say my poor, sensitive nature could not take it if I were to be dour and curmudgeonly all the time. My particular brand of “dominance” is much more subtle and suggestive, and dare I say just ever so feisty? However, I much prefer to be led submissively through life once in awhile, by those with whom I have placed the absolute trust of my person and my mind.
Rank: Due to the unfortunate circumstance which surrounds me and my particular flavour of zoanthropy, I have not yet located a den of wandering moggies, though one or two pepper indeed the expanse of South Yorkshire. As such, I fear I may have to remain “roguish” in my classification, but never think that it is to do with a wild, untamed nature that yearns to rebel against a socio-political problem that plagues me in everyday life.
Human Appearance: 
(Explains a lot, doesn’t it?)
I like to believe that I am perfectly suited to my needs. It has been said that I have the tendency to
tower over unsuspecting people, but that is rather unfair when a man has no hope of altering his genetic makeup to prevent him from sprouting like a weedy, open-faced youth at 14. It does not change the fact that most group photos in which I take part will usually find myself hunkered towards the back, so as to give the photographer a sporting chance of snapping the entirety of the group in one go. With that being put firmly in mind—but not so firmly as to harm one’s sense of judgment—I endeavour to make myself as easily presented as a bouquet of fresh cut daffodils. I admit that my nose is bent at pleasing and rowdy angles and my smile, while trying to come off sincere and open, winds up taking a left somewhere and arrives smug and smirking in all the damnedest ways. I try very hard to look like the sort of man one might see turning into their beloved grandfather, for there is nothing more that I find more rewarding than the life of an accomplished old family man.
So my often wind-fluffed hair is streaked and peppered with bits of grey, and my belly is perhaps expanding rather more quickly than I’d like, ho hum. This sounds a bit like a Lonely Hearts column, doesn’t it, save for the sheer wall of words that it has taken to simply say “I am tall, stout, have a smarmy annoying grin that I can’t stand and a bent nose which may well be as imitation of life.” Oh! I suppose I ought to mention that my hair is still mostly brown, my eyes are usually shielded behind rather plain spectacles, and, should you need further identification in case you’ve chosen to have a bit of a spy on me, I am quite fond of the slimming and sharpening effects of pinstripes on a well-tailored suit.
Face Claim: Er, yes. Yes it is Stephen Fry. :sneaky:
Animal Appearance(s): 
During my spare time, I happen to take the form of a dainty and sophisticated ginger-coloured moggy—a mottled short haired tabby to be divinely accurate. My nosey-wosey is a delicate, twitchy pink, and my muzzle and chest looks as though it has been dipped in a vat of white wash. I also have white socks, but the rest of me is as rudely ginger as a despised step child. Somehow, and I’m absolutely buggered—you can spank me and call me Belinda if it is not so!—if I know why, but I appear to have retained my smug, gittish smile while I don the C’s, G’s, A’s and T’s that make up the feline’s deoxyribonucleic acid. Please don’t fault me for it, as I am usually thinking of nothing more wicked than a nap in the sun. And though I am absolutely tickled a shade of pink not yet recognized by Crayola when someone cares for my well being, I would be ever so grateful if people wouldn’t mind
not asking if I would like a cheeseburger. Cheese tends to bind me up, I’m afraid.
As for a “second form”, I have been known to whip out the old soft and fuzzy skin once in awhile for house parties and the like, but I would never dream of using it in so vulgar a way as to consider attacking a person in such a form. I suppose it could be described as rather “tiger-like” without the roughty-toughty stripes to camouflage me should I happen to wander into a grassy, scorching India. Unlike most victimised members of the half-animal, half-human community, I shrink ever so slightly, whilst retaining my fur, my pointed toofs for the gnawing of tender chunks of tuna or chicken, and twitchy, fuzzy bottlebrush tail. Being that the cat as a law must be as graceful as a non-Newtonian fluid, I also take care to mind that I adopt more of the cat’s special, brilliant muscular structure while reducing my own natural ones to a minimum, namely the ones that allow me to walk upright and the ones that operate my fingers and thumbs. I also keep the retractable claws, for strategic can-opening purposes.
Strengths: I’m afraid to say that I really possess no particular quality that I should define as a “strength”. It’s no use calling me humble either, because I’m a bare-faced, snot-nosed little braggart and like nothing more than announcing my achievements to whoever cares to listen. I suppose, if I must chose something, it would by my unending capacity for love of my fellow man—both unaltered, and slightly fuzzy.
Weaknesses: Where to start, where to start…I’m afraid I come off as ever so slightly arrogant without meaning to. I attribute this to my love of knowledge which I eat up with the ravenous hunger of a newborn babe. Along similar lines, my belt has many more punctures in its poor hide than it started life with, due to my epicurean approach to life and the dinner table. I enjoy a good, brisk roll in bed, and, if this could be said without the peanut gallery expelling into great, wheezing humour farts from the vocal chords, I am a shameless homosexual. I am weak in the knees for golden, sun-blessed skin that smells faintly of deodorising spray and sweat, same as anyone; I just happen to enjoy it without chesticles. I love the English language the toying about with it as a kitten with a fresh ball of yawn. I love bundling up new words in unsuspecting sentences and testing them on pink ears and delighting in the sound of a fresh application of a still young language. I suppose most sinful of all would be the fact that I do
not fear the little hellion I turn into every moon. I love being a lost cat and happening upon kind old families and wild young children; I love experiencing ecstasy eternal as I trust other’s kindness for my continued survival. There is nothing more satisfying than shedding many an overjoyed tear for the goodness that still exists in the human condition.
Personality: Goodness, what can possibly be said that I haven’t beaten to a bloody, messy, unrecognisable pulp already? I fear it may be impossible to express within the constraints of the English lexicon the longitude, fathomage, latitude and stature of my dismay…well, ‘tis better to have loved and lost than never have made a complete cock of yourself. I enjoy people and must surround myself with them as often as I possibly can. If given a choice between a rousing and lively party into the wee hours and a lonely evening at home with a glass of sherry and an interesting book, I would choose the former nearly every time. However, it would be egregious to assume that I would love and need to be the
life of the party. This is not true at all, and would prefer to surround myself with a few choice people and chat the night away. I cannot sing, I cannot dance, and for all intents and purposes, have no musical talent whatsoever. All I have is my wit and my love of culture and knowledge. I could not stand up and spout off comedy bits because I am not a showman. I want to take each guest aside and hear their life story and rootle around in their brains for stray facts.
When faced with an unkindness, not only should the one being in need of a champion be put at ease with a cup of tea and a pat on the back, but so should the bully, after he has been told soundly off and warned not to cause unnecessary damage to the body or spirit again. There is very little than cannot be solved by being reasonable, a fact which I put much stock in. People pride themselves on being bipedal, and entirely rational creatures; it is thus of massively great importance to treat them as such. Some of my other delightful foibles of my vast and meandering personality is that I enjoy being a housecat so much that I often find that I develop some habits which more suit that animal in me than the man. Perhaps most alarmingly is the
purring which people assume I am making up to criticise or otherwise take the piss out someone. It was never my intention, I assure you.
Likes: I have so many vices, I could make a vicar blush. I love drink, the English language, the delicious tingling of a well-played cricket match, the scent of sweat, grass stains and sunlight, a warm, lickable throat, warm milk, soft fur against a biting wind, roasty toasty mittens, an honest smile, a sunny summer day, fond nicknames…I suspect this may get a bit long; shall we go to the list that will almost assuredly be not so over populated and draw conclusions from that?
Dislikes: Being cold, and rudeness. Rude people will always wind me up, but more often than not, they are simply people seeking attention, and usually the wrong sort. So I make it a point to be extraordinarily nice to them, because they are so obviously in need of a kind word.
History: [not!Stephenspeak] Alastair was born a happy, healthy baby on Guy Fawkes Day, 1957 in the town of Cheshire. He was the middle child of three, and had a fairly comfortable early life with a productive run at a prep school. He was a top sort of lad too—great marks when it suited him, a wicked sense of humour that made him popular with boys. He was everything to all men and Alastair thrived on that for years, that need for attention. So when Delia and John MacDonald told their passle to pack up, they were moving back to Falkirk in 1968, Alastair was utterly crushed. He didn’t want to talk funny or start from scratch recruiting people to the Church of Him.
He didn’t get much of a choice in the matter though, as the family moved to Scotland to live near extended relatives that he’d barely heard of, let alone recognised. Alastair refused to get sucked into the new life style, abhorred the accent, the landscape, absolutely everything and made it as hard as possible for his parents to enjoy the experience as well. His siblings would merely roll their eyes and suck it up. As soon as Alastair was able, roughly aged 16, he moved out and ran as far south as quickly as he could to be as quintessentially English as possible; he eventually wound up in Bristol, where he was able to locate an old mate from Cheshire, David Atwell.
Alastair remembered Atwell well enough and he’s always been a very good looking creature, even back then. He was absolutely staggered to find out that what had started off as a cherubic, round-faced boy had turned into a gorgeous picture of adolescence. And he had a flat of his own in the city centre and wouldn’t mind if Alastair bunked up with him. Alastair located a school that would prepare him for A levels, and found a job working at an office where he was praised for the soothing, dulcet quality of his voice when answering phones. This time in Bristol was both the busiest and the most pleasant in Alastair’s life, which culminated in his acceptance to Queen’s College, Cambridge, and a rather explosive and wonderfully passionate night in Atwell’s arms. The next morning, Alastair even made breakfast for the both of them, much to Atwell’s chagrin.
While this was ultimately a very liberating experience for Alastair, by the time he’d finished uni, he may as well have been lost at sea. He enjoyed his studies, but work was a different beast, as he was sure he didn’t want to work at a call centre for the rest of his life. He made his lonely way back to Cheshire, finding it a much smaller, lonelier town than he remembered, and moved on to Liverpool. He was able to secure a job within the World Museum and settle down to a rather fruitless life of curators and lack lustre lectures. Alastair found other means to occupy himself, mostly taking up writing and story telling, but he was known to trawl the docks for interesting—and interested—sailors. It was one of the sailors that gave him the gift of an STD; Alastair never did find out which one it was. Though, to be very honest, there were worse diseases to get and he was more than grateful to not have to scratch at his gentlemen’s area every five minutes.
At first, he was quite sceptical of the fact that he, a rather tall and well-built fellow, had turned into a tiny, ginger cat. Where did the extra mass go, for instance? But he went with it, taking time out during the month to get better at this cat thing. He was alone on the matter, not having a mentor to show him the ins and outs of the disease. Alastair was a clever bastard though, and learned quite a lot through simple trial and error. He would pick up strange scents on people, who would also pick up strange scents on him. It was almost like belonging to the Masons, but being so far removed no one would teach him the handshake. At least, not until he was taken in by a very nice organisation calling itself Zoanthrope Investigations for being an accomplice in the murder of Sarah Stevens, a nice young girl who never hurt anyone.
It was a mistake, thankfully, no matter how grave. Before he was turned loose, Alastair asked politely if they wouldn’t mind taking him on as perhaps a constable, or maybe an apprentice—anything but that terribly dreary museum chore he went to everyday. They said they would think about it and they shut the door in his face. Two weeks later, they called him back and gave him an interview. He was employed by the ZI in April of 1981. It was exciting work; sometimes there would be chasing crims, or cracking codes or filing important paper work, all while getting shouted at for sometimes having a tail. It was rather like prep school, actually, giving Alastair something of a thrill of excitement. He’d excelled in prep school. So he championed for his fellow apprentices and constables, undermined authority and was excruciatingly nice to
everyone. He even called his parents for the first time in years. Things were going to go right, now that Alastair was an upstanding citizen.
By the time 2007 rolled around, Alastair MacDonald was a Superintendent—often going by SuperMac—and getting cosy with life. Complacent, really. He was no longer the fiery young man he used to be, despite still maintaining a keen wit and a pocketful of spare vocabulary. It made him a bit sad to be honest, because that was exactly what he didn’t want to happen in his life. So to shake things up, Alastair, now sadly out of shape and in need of change, stepped down from his beloved Super position in favour of changing not only his rank, but departments as well. He moved on to Killamarsh as a simple DI and took up a leisurely walking regimen to get back into working shape. Alastair is still regularly teased and poked fun of for being a harmless kitty, yet he’s all right with that. He’s meeting new people and gathering new stories while doing fresh and exciting work. He’s come a long way from the young punk who didn’t like Scotland. His heart’s bigger for the journey.
Political Views: [not!Stephenspeak] Alastair as a ZI Detective Inspector who blends into the background (and thus avoided the cure >.>) has seen the woes of the city and wishes to heal them. He feels very strongly for zoan-human equality and believes that the only way to accomplish that is through human education. They cannot be kept in the dark any further and must be helped so that they can come to grips with shifters as quickly and gently as possible, possibly through "classes" and positive leaflets. Zoans cannot be relocated and they cannot be changed. It would be doing humans an injustice keeping quiet about them anyway. He would like to merge ZI with the police proper, so that everyone protects both zoans and humans which should make Killamarsh a less dangerous and more aware city.
