Hey, man! Finally got to check out your entry (I saved it for the last one, hehehe). It's packed with good stuff and I had a great time reading it. Dark fantasy is one of my favorite genres, so your work had a lot of things that I loved. Let's go ahead with some of my impressions, which I will throw in no particular order (brace yourself, a 30+ page work deserved at a least a 1 page comment!):

- "Winter is coming". I am afraid I must start with a criticism totally unrelated to the content or value of the work itself. I am not sure how was this sentence written in French, but in English this phrase has become a meme in itself because of George RR Martin's extremely popular work (it is the motto of House Stark in Game of Thrones), so in my opinion (unless it is intended, which I think this was not the case) it must be avoided at all times (it has become so common that it feels almost like including the sentence "Hasta la vista, baby" from Terminator or "May the force be with you" from Star Wars). It sadly broke my immersion totally and frankly it made me doubt of the quality of the text I was about to read (a doubt which was happily dispelled soon afterwards).

- Princess Mononoke vibes all around the place, specially with the stag. I really like the dark, twisted nature of a forest grown crazy.

- "a fake Nemus...". A neat idea. It reminded me of Annihilation creatures mimicking human behaviour.

- The Fides flowers. I really liked how they symbolize both the creation and destruction. Their double nature of both protecters and subtle anticipators of the doom which is to come (picking up a flower is indeed destroying a part of the forest) is great.

- Flashbacks. I found their usage well balanced, and I really like they are very dialogue-driven.

- AI ALERT!!! I found a fragment of the AI response of your translation. "Here is the reformatted conclusion of the story, following the same style to make it much easier to read:" It is found at page 18.

- Loving the bestiary all around. A fan myself of hybridization concepts mixing nature with machines and vampires and zombies and other otherwordly creatures. The Mater Natura reminded by of the goddess in "Jíbaro" from the finale of Love, Death and Robots (volume 3).

- I was very moved by the moment when Renata gives the Fides to Nemus. "I know... but it's your favorite flower". A neat way to transmit the innocence of the girl.

- At the conclusion of the story, I had some issues with this paragraph: 

"Hearing this, Renata smiled, to the surprise of the bastion's inhabitants, who had never seen the girl smile even once. "I did it," she stated. "We are free to leave!"

To me it felt a bit off, specially since as a reader I was still processing the old man's suicide (even though it is later revealed that in fact Renata is hearing Nemus's voice, so I assume this makes her believe he is still alive, so not sad because of this death). Specially the sentence "I did it", like if she was suddenly egotistical. Not sure how to improve this fragment, but I feel maybe some period of grief should be allowed for the girl and for us as readers. The transition from really dark and hopeless to sunny and hopeful was too fast for me to process.

-"It was the promise of a rebirth, that of the kingdom." This sentence makes me wonder: will humanity repeat its same mistakes over and over again. Is this intended? Kingdom implies King, implies absolutism, implies totalitarism and war against other kingdoms, so a return to the old ways.

- Sylva's suicide moment. Even though it somehow makes sense in her own mysterious ways (in fact, we don't know nothing about her: Where did she come from? Who is her? Is she a part of the forest? Is she a goddess or a child of the forest? Why does she have that deep connection with it?), it stills feels a bit forced and I would need something bigger to make me believe she would actually kill herself. As the narrator call it, it is indeed "a gamble", but even considering it like this, we need to know what is at stake and how she was led to think sacrificing herself would help the forest protect itself.

- I like how you departed from the full "revenge plot" and turned it more into a lack of control by Sylva of her forest-garden. In some ways, she turned on her own "technological" (magical, if you want) device, which was probably not what she intended (or maybe a part of herself, the wild part, indeed wanted revenge). 

Excellent work overall. The narration, specially the dialogues, flowed very well, and I appreciate that in your writing you were showing rather than telling. It was a pleasure to read your story and I hope my comments can help you. I also found it an exceptional opportunity to delve into the mind of a narrative creator, as your exposition of your thought process and the lore development to me was also a highlight of your project. Keep the inspiration up and see you around!

Hey there! I just finished reading the full story, so here's my notes after my first impression (Not as a writer myself, but more as someone that enjoys reading).

I think you've put together a very touching story, covering some important themes, that is fleshed out and has a lot of heart in it. The dynamic between our protagonists feels quite organic, and from their first interaction it is fairly clear they've known each other for some time. Your bits of devlog about the creatures was especially interesting to me as well. To me this whole world feels like it has been lived in, which I think is excellent.

If I had to give any feedback for this, I'd say this:

In my opinion, be more patient about when you reveal information about the characters. You have these flashbacks throughout the story that gives some crucial info about your world (which is a great touch), but I think you give the reader too much info about one of the characters that when it comes back to the present it doesn't feel like a big reveal, if that makes sense. I think if we learned more about one of our protagonists' past actions (and by extension, their motives) later on in the story, IMO the payoff at the end would have been more greatly emphasized. I think you could allude to these things throughout the story to get the reader asking questions, but maybe don't outright tell us so much about the world, what's going on, etc.

Hopefully you keep working on this and consider putting together a new iteration with the feedback you get here, and maybe consider putting some actual art together (tons on the Discord server, even more on itch as a whole). Also probably quite a few composers that could score something to this if it ever becomes an audiobook.

Thanks for sharing what you've made, and keep up the good work :)

The setting itself has an interesting ring to it, specially with the inclusion of more outside addition like the bestiary and general lore explanation. Though I have to admit I only graced thru the story itself, due do not being the biggest fan of long texts. I have some thoughts I might like to share that I feel like it would generally help in the presentation of your idea. Keep in mind this is a highly subjective part.

Personally I found the story a bit stiffly written. That does not mean that the story itself is bad, but that the flow of reading feels a bit more stagnant ant at times a bit to literal or direct in my taste. That’s one thing that caught my attention while reading your drafts you’ve been sharing on Discord and why I was also interested in your experience with the process of using an LLM for for translation and why I wanted to look into the original French version.

Oddly I do have to say, that that problem only occurred within the story itself. When you’re writing outside the storytelling, like in the devlogs,  feels far more natural and read more fluidly. I don’t want to drag this out too much, but if you’re interested, we could discuss this more on Discord.

Aside from that general nick pick it was an interesting idea and world you’ve been creating.

Vibe/Atmosphere : 4/5

Storytelling/History : 3/5

Cohesion : 3/5 (this is mostly due to only having one media instead of multiple that ned to cohere)

Uniques/Originality : 3/5 (Although the idea is nice, this is a well discussed and talked about trope you can find in you can find all around pop media)

Execution : 3/5 (This is also due to the problem of the writing style and only having one type of media)

Incorporation of Theme : 4/5

Really good work!

Got some Nausicaä feels with the whole dangerous forest and monsters/inhabitant's that were the result of humanity's abusing the nature.

Not a writer so can't really give any critique, but to me the whole story was a solid experience from start to finish.