Depressed Skeeters

Depressed Skeeters are a somewhat unique case of Enemy Discoloring, that occurs in rare instances of personalized copies. This entity is commonly associated with the Negative Emotional Aura exuded by Wet-Dry World. They have also been reported appearing inside the Sunken Castle level, commonly accessible in a Post-Bad Ending Alternate Campaign.

Skeeter’s colors remain the same, although they appear to have a slightly darker tint. It’s eyes are now reddish, but this can be hard to notice during gameplay. It’s idle animation has been slightly altered, now vibrating as if it was ‘scared’. The idle animation speeds up the closer the player gets to the Skeeter, but otherwise has no effect on gameplay.

Behavior
Depressed Skeeters, as opposed to their non-personalized counterparts, do not glide towards Mario, instead staying in place. If Mario approaches the Skeeter, it tries to move away from him in a similar manner to fleeing Koopa Troopas. If it meets the wall or is blocked in some way while fleeing from the player, the model will collapse in on itself and begin vibrating rapidly. This can normally be fixed by moving away from the Skeeter, but some players have claimed that their Skeeters became stuck like this, even after entering and exiting the course. If a Depressed Skeeter approaches a Water Switch it will play the ‘Enemy Down’ sound effect at an incredibly increased pitch before gliding away at double their usual speed. (This has been reported to cause headaches in players, however this does not seem to be anomalous. This is more than likely a normal response to hearing repeated high-pitched screeching from the Skeeter enemy.)

In addition to avoiding water switches, they seem to avoid the entrance to the Flooded Town as well. If the player raises the water level the game experiences a massive lag spike as all Skeeters are simultaneously defeated. Their death sound effect is lower pitched and slightly distorted, having a ‘warbling’ effect. Depressed Skeeters do not drop coins when defeated, increasing the difficulty of the 100 coin star (or outright making it impossible) depending on how many Skeeters have been replaced. In rare instances players have reported Depressed Skeeters having dialogue, but no proof has been given so the veracity of this claim is questionable at best.

Negative emotional aura
People theorize due to the Skeeter’s appearance looking as if they were ‘crying’ and their general scared/depressed mannerisms that the entities themselves are somehow being affected by Wet-Dry World’s negative emotional aura. This is highly unlikely, as it would open the doors for the A.I. being able to feel emotions such as despair and fear. A much more likely explanation for these odd mannerisms is the Personalization A.I’s attempt to make the enemies of Wet-Dry World match the emotional state of the player, to give a more cohesive experience.

Shared Nightmares
Multiple players have come forward with reports of shared nightmares, mostly consisting of Skeeters drowning in Wet-Dry World. While these cases have happened more than once it has not happened frequently enough for it to be considered anomalous by any means.

Empathetic Emotional Aura
Skeeters in general seem to have a strange ‘Empathetic Emotional Aura’ whether they be Depressed Skeeters or the non-personalized variant. This is most likely due to them residing solely in Wet-Dry World, and players feeling some sense of sorrow for them being seemingly trapped in this environment. The Personalization A.I. could have picked up on this, and tried to make the Skeeters seem even more empathetic. It’s unknown whether the Empathetic Emotional Aura is anomalous, or simply players projecting onto the enemies inside the level.