First of all, I want to thank all of you once again for making it with me to almost 100 chapters of this fanfic. We've moved slowly, but steadily, and we are getting further and further away from canon and closer to a completely original story.
Because of that, I think this is a good moment to do a small poll and hear some ideas. I'm not exactly stuck, because I have a pretty clear idea of what I want to happen overall, but I am a bit undecided about the next major scene.
My main plan is to create some kind of meeting between the major players of Westeros, something similar to the Jon and Daenerys meeting in canon, in order to show them the threat of the dead, present wights, and force some kind of coalition.
I want to make it clear that, in my story, the Night King is an actual threat. In the show and in almost every fanfic I have read, I never really felt like Westeros could truly lose. Sure, they might suffer defeats or be forced to retreat, but I never got the feeling that they could be completely overwhelmed.
That will not be the case here. My idea is that the Night King can resurrect practically every living thing that has died beyond the Wall over thousands of years. Between humans, giants, direwolves, bears, and many other creatures, the army of the dead would be around 120 million strong. Obviously, they would not all move at once, because that would be impossible to counter, but even so, the threat would still be enormous.
Because of that, I need Vlad to unify Westeros with as few losses as possible, relying mostly on politics, coercion, and diplomacy. I never wanted this story to become "Vlad conquers everything because he is too powerful." Precisely because Vlad is so powerful, I want to force him to solve many problems through politics.
And that is where the poll comes in. I know how to gather characters like Tommen, Cersei, the Tyrells, Littlefinger, Stannis, and the rest of the important players, but I need coherent problems for that meeting. I do not want everything to work out perfectly for Vlad just because. I want conspiracies, misunderstandings, people trying to take advantage of the situation, temporary alliances, sabotage attempts, and anything else that could complicate the meeting.
So if you have any ideas for problems, conspiracies, betrayals, political conflicts, or scenes you would like to see in that meeting, I would love to read them.
And while we are at it, if anyone has any fanfic recommendations worth reading, I would also appreciate that a lot, because lately almost everything I try to read is filled with AI to unbearable levels. If I have to read another sentence like "he did not need control, he needed understanding" or "she walked through the room with the quiet confidence of someone who already knew she was the most powerful person in the kingdom," I am going to lose my mind.
Thank you all for making it this far. Seriously, I have a great time writing this story and reading everything you comment.