Godzilla Warriors 6: Breach [Wattys 2017]

BTS

Prison Setting:
The prison setting idea came from the show Prison Break, which a friend of mine introduced me to about a year before I started writing. The show is about two brothers trying to break out of a maximum security prison. While I was watching the show, it gave me an idea for a story where the Kaiju are arrested, and try to break out. I was also looking for a story idea for the Pacific Rim crossover idea I had only just come up with. I tweaked the idea a bit with ideas from Captain America Civil War, which came out shortly before I started writing, and the result was Godzilla Warriors 6.

Slattern's Role:
Originally, I wasn't going to have a main villain in the story. I was just going to have the Kaiju from the breach acting on their own without a real leader. Instead, I decided to use Slattern as a main villain. The reason for this was that I really wanted to have a female villain to rival Ghidorah. I have pretty big plans for Slattern in future stories, most of which involve Ghidorah. Don't expect to see more of her for a while, though.

Relationship Issues:
After book 5, I really didn't want to delve any more into Godzilla's relationship with Mothra. I thought I had been focusing too much on it lately in recent stories, rather than some of the other characters. But I decided that the story needed something a bit stronger to connect it together, so focussing on the relationship was sort of inevitable. The training sequence at the beginning was really fun to write. Cherno Alpha and Anguirus' little love-hate thing was pretty fun too. You know, it's strange that I find myself writing romance a lot, and I've been single for the past 6 years.

Mothra Comes Out:
The decision to make Mothra bisexual came about in a strange way. A friend of mine, who's also a fan of my books, joked about pairing Mothra with one of his female characters. While it was originally a joke, I kind of liked the idea. I thought Mothra being bi sort of tied into her being very open minded and willing to try anything. I originally intended Mothra to come out as bi in a short one off. I even wrote a draft of what I had originally planned. Most of the things from the original draft showed up in the actual story, though Godzilla's reaction was a bit different. I'll post what I had originally written to the One-Off book soon.

Also, she's not the only LGBT character in the Godzilla Warriors series. Slattern is pansexual, meaning she's attracted to all genders, regardless of sexual identity. This is why she tries to seduce both Muto and Godzilla.

Anguirus' New Hammer:
You Overwatch fans out there may have spotted this one. Anguirus' new hammer was inspired directly by the character Reinhardt. In Overwatch, Reinhardt is a tank class character who wields a massive rocket hammer. I also had Anguirus dress up as Reinhardt in the Halloween short. I actually main Reinhardt, as well as Reaper, Pharrah, and D.Va. Alright, now I'm just talking about Overwatch. I may put some more Overwatch references in other Godzilla Warriors stories later.

Cameos:
I originally planned for Dogolas from book 4 to appear at some point in the story, but I couldn't figure out how to work it into the story. He would have shown up in the Shatterdome to either threaten or attack Godzilla. I ended up not doing this, but it is canon that Dogolas was in the Shatterdome during the story. I was also gonna have a Godzilla Warriors-ified version of Stacker Pencoast from Pacific Rim, but it didn't make much sense. I was also gonna have him give his badass "cancelling the apocalypse" speech, but instead I just had Gypsy reference it.

Komi's Secret:
I originally was going to have Komi actually be pregnant, and she would have revealed it to Zilla by the end of the book. But I didn't want to add yet another subplot to the book, so I cut the idea down a bit. I actually plan on having a lot of the Godzilla Warriors characters have kids in the future. Also, Komi has another secret that even she doesn't know yet.

F-Bomb:
This is the first time I've ever used the f word in a Godzilla Warriors story. I probably won't use it again, at least for a while. I'm going by the Bojack Horseman rule. For those who don't know, the writers of Bojack Horseman only use the f word once a season, and only when something super heavy and impactful happens (usually when something depressing and intense happens to Bojack). I'm trying to use a similar rule in my stories; I won't use the f word unless the situation in really really REALLY important. Muto confronting Slattern was a pretty big deal, at least the way I imagined it, so I think it deserved the f-bomb.