{"id":242,"date":"2024-07-25T17:07:40","date_gmt":"2024-07-25T17:07:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ericiakhoo.com\/?p=242"},"modified":"2024-07-25T17:07:40","modified_gmt":"2024-07-25T17:07:40","slug":"ectobear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ericiakhoo.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/25\/ectobear\/","title":{"rendered":"Ectobear"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Everett Kirk, also known as the Ectobear<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Ectobear\u2019s reference sheet<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Ectobear\u2019s Accessory Sheet<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Um\u2026.hello there. Not really sure what I\u2019m supposed to do here. Talk about myself? I guess I\u2019ll do that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My name is Everett Kirk. Or, that\u2019s what\u2019s on my birth certificate. No one really calls me Everett anymore. I\u2019m actually known to most as \u2018Ectobear\u2019, a nickname based on these turquoise patches all over my body and my eye\u2019s colours being reversed of what they originally were. Some say I look like a monster the Ghostbusters would hunt, others just tell me that they\u2019ve never seen any anthro like me. Eh, I guess it makes sense, not every day you meet someone who had a bona-fide superhero backstory, but they don\u2019t know that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was exposed to Ectoplasm when I was twelve. That goopy, turquoise substance kinda\u2026.killed me, in a way, and then brought me back to life with its paranormal properties, so now I\u2019m only like, half dead, half alive. Weird, I know. It also gave me funky powers I don\u2019t utilise to the fullest extent (C\u2019mon I have social anxiety and live in a relatively safe place when do you think I have time to be a hero). The only powers I actually use on a regular basis concern my own mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I have social anxiety, we already know this. What you don\u2019t know is that I also have a tendency to blow up at people, out of sheer enthusiasm or anger, and then suddenly turn silent and distant. Quite the contrast of personalities huh? Yeah that all changed 3 years ago, during quite a terrible anxiety attack, when I summoned a character I created in Primary school. Blizzard, that\u2019s his name. One thing led to another and I suddenly had another voice knocking around my mind telling me when to become anxious or scared or start panicking, rather than my own self doing it\u2019s own thing. Lo and Behold, I created a proxy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several years later, I have a grand total of four proxies, or Ectopunks as they call themselves, representing the contrasting personalities of myself. I\u2019ll admit, it\u2019s silly to have four rambunctious creatures controlling your reaction to things like a puppet, but hey, it works for me! Alongside them, however, there\u2019s a whole other slew of creatures bumbling around in my mind, but that\u2019s a story for another day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God, this whole introductory thing is getting long and irrelevant. Ok, I\u2019ll just leave you with this information: I\u2019m currently living a double life; A semi-normal teen living their life in the real world, and a creational god in my own imagination. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fun times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ectobear is my current online fursona, created sometime in 2022. they\u2019re a Half-Ghost, Half-Anthropomorphic bear that created most, if not all of the characters in their imagination, bringing them to life with their supernatural powers. In-universe, he is also the individual who creates the artwork of the characters, therefore, I felt that adding their commentary to their reference sheets would make enough sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note: Ectobear is characterised as a male-presenting non binary individual. Going forward, I will refer to this character with They\/He pronouns to reflect this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ectobear wasn\u2019t originally going to be ghost-themed. The nickname \u2018Ecto\u2019 was adopted when I was younger as an alternative to using my surname on online games. It was only upon further research that I realised the word \u2018ecto\u2019 meant outer, with paranormal connotations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The very first incarnation of Ectobear wasn\u2019t ghost-themed either. They were just going to be a green recolour of Freddy Fazbear from Five NIghts at Freddy\u2019s. With no plan, I printed out a picture of Freddy\u2019s face, glued it to some cardboard to create a mask, gave it some dimension and started painting it in shades of green.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The original Ectobear Mask<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In-between painting the muzzle, paint started peeling, leaving behind a large gouge that couldn\u2019t be filled up. Running out of green paint and desperate, I mixed up a pale turquoise and painted inside the gouge. As I kept making mistakes in the paint job, I mixed up more turquoise paint in different shades to paint over the errors, creating patches all over the mask. This created a unique look for the character, and later became the signature look for the character.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deciding to play into the patches, I incorporated the meaning of \u2018Ecto\u2019 to create a reason for the patches. Ectoplasm seeping into their fur, merging with skin and flesh, turning the normal bear into an abomination beyond comprehension. A living being that was dead, yet lived among us like a normal individual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The earliest artwork of Ectobear I could find, the original was lost after my school purged our Procreate memberships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just like what Ectobear said just now, there\u2019s a lot more to explain for their story, both in-universe and their development as a character and fursona. But I feel that just listing the reasons for his existence and appearance is sufficient for now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Um\u2026.hello there. Not really sure what I\u2019m supposed to do here. Talk about myself? I guess I\u2019ll do that. My name is Everett Kirk. Or, that\u2019s what\u2019s on my birth certificate. No one really calls me Everett anymore. I\u2019m actually known to most as \u2018Ectobear\u2019, a nickname based on these turquoise patches all over my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[24,35],"class_list":["post-242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-characterspuppets","tag-character","tag-ectobear"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericiakhoo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericiakhoo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericiakhoo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericiakhoo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericiakhoo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ericiakhoo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":245,"href":"https:\/\/ericiakhoo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242\/revisions\/245"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericiakhoo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericiakhoo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericiakhoo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericiakhoo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}