#king watinga

the heatwave's killing me, and the bugs as well.

Name: Gnat Attack

Debut: Mario Paint

I love flies! Diptera is my favorite insect order! But the world as a whole does not love flies. Just look at Flyswatter. An entire genre of item that exists to try and kill flies! It would be nice if everyone could love flies while still being reasonably careful about the biting and disease-spreading one, but at least the prevalence of fly swatting means I get to talk about some Weird Mario Flies!

Fly is the most basic fly. I wouldn't want anything else for this role! A classic gray housefly who will land on your food and rub its hands together. One of the most charismatic fly behaviors! It looks like they're scheming, but they're really cleaning their hands when they do that! It would be nice if they did it before landing on your food, but they're not being rude on purpose... or are they?! (they are not. They are not smart enough to do that)

Fly does not have interesting behaviors and in fact cannot even attack the player, but the most interesting thing about it, to me, is their relationship with Munchers! If a Muncher is shaken enough in Super Mario Maker, flies will come out, and swatting them is the way to start the Gnat Attack minigame. But why here? Why Muncher? I guess it's because of the Venus Fly Trap inspiration, and compared to standard Piranha Plants, Munchers look more like they would catch bugs, rather than tear meat from bone. Perhaps this is rudely shaking out the Muncher's meal! That's not nice! And then the player most likely just wants to swat the fly. What a waste! At least eat it.

Big Fly is the first dangerous one, and can attack the hand that holds the flyswatter! What's it going to do? Spread pathogens? Suck blood? Fly into your eye and make you blink a lot? None of those things! It will fire Projectiles. Its shiny green exoskeleton brings to mind the green bottle fly, which does not have any Projectile Attacks as far as I know.

I don't know why, but Big Fly is the only one from the original game to not return in Super Mario Maker. Maybe its attack pattern didn't work well with the new control method? It DID feature in the pause menu, return in the WarioWare version of Gnat Attack, and even get to be on the title screen there! Maybe all that went to its head, and it started demanding too much. A rabbit carcass all to itself at the snack break area. That's just too much rabbit carcass! You're not too good to eat at the same rabbit carcass as the rest of us!

Fly Parent is my favorite one! For many reasons! This is not Fly Mother. This is a non-binary parent birthing insects out the wazoo! Representation Win! I'm glad it's yellow, because that reminds me of hoverflies, my very favorite flies! The sweet little slurpers who just want to drink nectar, and mimic bees and wasps for protection! As babies, though, they are voracious predators, and Fly Parent differs in this regard.

Instead of larvae, Fly Parent gives birth directly to Fly Children! These have the most basic fly design possible, but their circumstances are interesting enough to compensate! I assume you know that flies, as with many insects, hatch from an egg as a larva, then later become a pupa, and finally emerge as a winged adult. Fly Children, however, appear to be these very winged adults, and also look nothing like Fly Parent! There are a few possible explanations.

King Watinga! Hey this is still technically a Hot topic Mario Paint only came out [PUT WEEKS HERE CLOSER TO QUEUE DATE] so I get to do the big fly guy

King Watinga seems like the kinda guy who would just show up in one game but then he decided to show up in Mario Maker 1 which Flies on the Wii U is very fitting

54. King Watinga (Mario Paint)

Name: Fly

Debut: Mario Paint

I love flies! I love them a whole lot! Diptera is my favorite order of insects, and I think they deserve far more respect. They’re far more than just your typical poop-eaters (though those ones also deserve respect)!

There are flies with ridiculous small heads. There are flies with ridiculous big heads. There are flies with dang eyestalks. There are voracious predator flies who can and will kill and eat any other insect they please. There are flies that mimic dangerous insects so they can peacefully drink nectar without being disturbed. And that’s not nearly all of them!

My current personal favorite belongs to the latter group- the black-shouldered drone fly, which mimics bumblebees and lazily buzzes around flowers alongside them! This is my own photo, and when I saw this fly, I almost cried. This is simply the sweetest, most innocent creature there is. I hope you love it too.

But I’m not here to talk about flies in general, I’m here to talk about Mario Paint Fly! They first appear in the minigame Gnat Attack, where the goal is to... swat them... oh no! That’s not what I want from a fly-based game! Not at all! I think we should be able to play as the fly, and fly around, and that sort of thing!

But alas, this is the most common role of flies... reduced to nothing but a pest! Oh well. I just hope that isn’t Mario’s hand. He wouldn’t hurt a fly... right?

But to be fair, I guess these flies are dangerous! Not the basic ones, there’s no excuse there, but the big ones seen here can shoot projectiles. And as diverse as real Dipterans are, I don’t think any can shoot projectiles!

Even more aggressive is the Dragonfly, which actively targets the hand! Of course, real dragonflies aren’t true flies, but I’m fine with this name here. It’s funny.

Well this one is just a Bob-Omb

And lastly is King Watinga, the robotic king of flies, and final boss! Did humans build this, or did these flies build and program a robot themselves? I hope it was the flies! Though with that level of intelligence, it would make it even more appalling that the player is tasked with slaughtering them.

Fly Yoshi (Super Mario-kun)