Pastra

Zachary "Zach" Gignac (born: ),https://www.instagram.com/pastraspec/ his instagram bio states that he's 20.https://twitter.com/pastraspec/status/1496212577285779464 better known online as Pastra, is a Canadian YouTuber, artist and gamer. They are known for making analysis videos on the Five Nights of Freddy's franchise as well as some other horror media, games especially.
== History ==
Gignac was born in Canada. They joined YouTube on February 24, 2018, two days after his birthday.
=== Pastra's Past ARGs ===
Gignac was trying to make ARGs in the past on multiple channels, but everytime they tried doing one, it goes completely unnoticed. The only known ARG channels that Pastra owns are Someone Normal and My Happy Place. The Lankmann ARG on his main channel is the only (and possibly thus far) ARG that has not failed, as it has garnered attention.
=== Pastra's Mascots ===
Pastra had many ideas for a channel mascot before beginning to make content for YouTube.https://youtu.be/Wv3EzJdu_VA The game that inspired them to do art, and especially draw these mascots was Yume Nikki.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeFYCAGSUFg | Video Title: Yume Nikki: The Game That Inspired My Art
==== Winfrey ====
Winfrey was Pastra's first candidate as well as their oldest original character they still draw in his artworks today. However, he was scrapped due to Winfrey lacking the ability to make complex expressions and shows little emotion. Another reason why is that Winfrey was too involved in a story Pastra was writing, so it hadn't "felt right representing him in his videos".
Since then, Pastra began designing newer characters specifically made to represent themself.
==== Snakebat ====
Snakebat was Pastra's first attempt at making a whole new mascot and overall was the second candidate. Snakebat's first design used to be a tall, lanky character who had a mix and match of eyes and clothing, as well as having asymmetrical eyes, much like his current mascot, Clyde.
Back when Pastra was still creating Snakebat, they had the idea that he should be treated as a "strange, news anchor type character", who would report on atypical but fake events to then have Pastra discuss the game he was tackling in the video. While Pastra liked this weird idea, what they didn't like was Snakebat's difficult design. He tried altering Snakebat's designs several times though did not find any true satisfaction in any of them.
Experimenting with different color palettes and facial shapes, Pastra tried to shrink Snakebat down before eventually getting the design they felt like was the best. Even so, Pastra felt like there was some problems in using Snakebat's redesign as a mascot.
Akin to Winfrey, Snakebat was not exactly compatible with making readable expressions. Though Pastra did not want to deconstruct his design any further due to him liking his current appearance. In the end, Pastra scrapped him and the news anchor idea he had for Snakebat as it felt "too ingrained into the character he made for the channel".
==== Self-Portrait Mascot ====
After some contemplating, Pastra decided to make his next possible mascot to be a lot more personal to them - a mascot that represented his specific likings such as colors and design features he thought represented them the most, as well as make the design similar to what he looked like in real life. They also tried his best to make this mascot the effort to have readable expressions so he wouldn't have to run in the same problem he had with Winfrey and Snakebat.
Pastra ended up scrapping this mascot due to feeling like he needs to be more creative beyond a self-portrait.
==== Grimzo ====
After some more ruminating, Pastra came up with Grimzo, his overall fourth candidate and who'm they ended up really liking.
Grimzo's design had an emphasis on simplicity and also that of a Halloween fanatic. They designed Grimzo to be drawn easily multiple times.
Out of all of Pastra's scrapped mascots, Grimzo was the closest to be the core representative for his channel. He found him really fun to draw; the character was expressive; and had a unique appearance that somewhat contrasted to his past mascots. Despite all of this, Pastra still scrapped him in the end due to having different wants for a character in terms of style and content overall. Grimzo had an adorable design, though had little inspiration aside from being a ghost. 
==== Clyde ====
Clyde is Pastra's current mascot. They took inspiration from his many interests and likings and put them into this mascot's design. His highlighted features were Pastra's favorite colors; the asymmetrical eyes akin to Snakebat; his body was supposed to reminisce an old Halloween costume (which was inspired by Sam from Trick 'r Treat, & Lock, Shock, and Barrel from The Nightmare Before Christmas).
With Clyde, Pastra can see everything he adores in him, from the colors to his expressiveness.
==== Lankmann ====
Lankmann once held Pastra captive and was in charge of forcing them to make videos for awhile to gain popularity, as well as awareness to his ARGs. He wanted Pastra to make an ARG that was for once successful, but in doing so, has broken him down.
== Dreams of an Insomniac ==
Dreams of an Insomniac is a horror series made by Pastra that aired on Halloween night of 2022. It revolves around the town of Eastridge and its strange conspiracy of a monster roaming around Halloween night.
The Story follows Tommy Merrick visiting his old family home, and stumbling upon a strange box of tapes in the attic. He watchs them on his old CRT and Tommy thinks they are haunted and he begins to hear things, and they feel oddly familiar to Tommy.
Then it cuts to a newspaper article detailing a robbery that happened at Grimmso's a small halloween retail store, of the theft of one thing, a bright orange stripped costume. It cuts to the store owner, Rick Graham detailing his part of the story, no security footage was found and people are speculating who could've stolen the costume. Then it shows Seam Grim a local civilian, who thinks that the robbery never happened, and it was made up as a sole purpose of having things to cover on the newspaper. Then it warns the viewer to not trust anyone wearing the stolen costume.
With a glitch it cuts to a breaking news on ECN of 6 children that have gone missing in the area of Eastridge county, as it shows Alex Williams an eye witness, who tells that a mother was looking for her child, as everyone went to help her, another mother came along looking for her child as another an another comes. The police comes along as everyone is in a panic. After that it lists off the 6 children that have gone missing, Jason Macdonald, John Thompson, Ashley Wright, William Lewis, Norman Harris, and Sam Wilson. As the police are looking for the missing children as well as the culprit. While no one is suspected yet it shows an eye witness sketch of the culprit as a few description. An orange stripe costume with horns, a long tail, a black mask, and bright yellow eyes and teeth, as well a large smile (This obviously being Pastra's own mascot, Clyde), It advises that all residents do not approach anyone who fits this description. As it shows Officer Kruger making his promise to find the culprit and to be brought justice. It advises to people of Eastridge county to be indoors as well keeping all doors and windows locked and again to not trust anyone wearing the costume.
It soon cuts to security photos of Grimmso's that happened on October 6th 1986 that happened at exactly 6 am. It describes the image of the lights turning on itself and soon after a motion being detected as items get thrown and damaged as the next image shows a more realistic version of Clyde's face, with the words "FIRST CONTACT" as creepy music starts playing as it shows the security footage as well 2 eye witness sketch of the culprit, which Clyde being nicknamed "the Eastridge Demon".
After all that it once again shows Officer Kruger, with a text-to-speech program talking about what happened to Officer Kruger after his encounter with the Demon, with him getting multiple years of physical and mental therapy. He describes the Demon's ability. The video describes the demon being able to cause both auditory and visual hallucinations, and it warns that physical contact with it is incredibly dangerous as it can cause multiple effects on the person. Upon contact the person can get, discolored skin, severe weight loss, tightening of the skin, bones and flesh becoming fused, teeth growing weird it shouldn't, and bleeding from every orifice. It then lists off precautions, it warns to keep a distance between you and the demon, and to only approach if absolutely necessary and upon contact to seek help immediately. Then it tells that the demon is incredibly intelligent and it knows hes being hunted, and it lists off with it'll look out for, and finally showing a poster of the demon with the title "Beware the smiling snatcher". 
It then shows a clip presumably from a movie of a man getting dragged down by skeletal hands.
As it cuts to E.A.S(Emergency Alert System) of a cartoon titled "The Rules of the Season!" created by the Lankmann Foundation. The cartoon presents of things to do on halloween night as the Smiling Snatcher is out tonight, and tells to simply follow five rules.
* Rule #1: Do not be out after 6 pm as the Smiling Snatcher is now out and is coming to play.
* Rule #2: Keep all doors and windows locked, therefore the Smiling Snatcher cannot enter your house.
* Rule #3: You do not hear the knocking at your doors or the window(as it goes silent for a few moment).
* Rule #4:(Knocking) You do not hear the knocking at your doo- 
* Rule #4: If you see anyone out after 6 pm, it is not them and it is the Smiling Snatcher wearing their skin.
* Rule #5: Do not trust anyone wearing the costume.
It finally shows the Demon staring into the viewer as photos of the missing childrens, the witness sketches of the demon, aswell as moment from the cartoon. As laughter begins the settle in, it cuts off into the credits.
Finally ending off with the message "To Be Continued" with the Lankmann staring into you.
== Trivia ==
*Pastra's favorite horror game is Bendy and the Ink Machine, while their favorite game in general is Resident Evil Village.
* In their Bendy and the Ink Machine livestream, when Pastra starts "overanalyzing" Alice the Angel, the chat jokingly calls him a simp.https://youtu.be/_QpDLioKCM0?t=11420 This happens again in their livestream of Bendy and the Dark Revival, and Poppy Playtime Chapter 3, over the character Miss Delight.
** They are confused as to why they are being called a simp on his wikitubia page.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E38lXK-ebUc&t=7430s
* In the same livestream mentioned, Pastra also said that Lankmann was inspired by Spamton from Deltarune.
* Pastra claims that Lankmann now lives in their house and pays rent.https://www.youtube.com/@Pastraspec/about
* Pastra is non binary and uses they/he pronouns.
*His favorite Pokémon is Cacturne.https://twitter.com/pastraspec/status/1571644752893812736?s=20&t=HVIRPjoz-9MI5udKX__93g
*Shockingly enough, Pastra has said the're straight. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqP6piTUJ8o Though they've also stated that, much like a lot of straight men, they has exceptions.
== Gallery ==
File:Winfrey.png|His character Winfrey
File:Snakebat.png|His character reference of Snakebat
File:Pastra's_Self-Potrait_Mascot.png|His mascot
File:Grimzo.png|His character Grimzo
File:UpdatedClyde.jpg|His character Clyde
File:Goodness_gracious.png|His character Lankmann
==References==
Category:Gaming YouTubers
Category:Review YouTubers
Category:Commentary YouTubers
Category:Art YouTubers
Category:Canadian YouTubers
Category:Users who joined in 2017
Category:LGBT YouTubers