welcome to blossom hills, nc

what is hillside? in short: beloved ocs with too much worldbuilding in long:the title of the passion project/novel i've been working on-and-off since 2020. it's gone under many iterations and the story has changed many, many, many times, but here's a summary of its current form:

After pushing the lines with her parents and the law one too many times, ex-delinquent Hildegard "Hilde" Harris finds herself facing an ultimatum: move out and pay off her newly-acquired legal fines with no support, or get sent away from everything she knows and loves to live with her estranged aunt in her mother's hometown, in the vague hopes that a change of pace will help her settle down and grow up. Surrounded by strange faces, like the local mortician's daughter or the paranoid homesteader who lives in the stretch of land between theirs, it doesn't take long for Hilde to find home in a place that initially felt opposed to her homecoming. Despite the initial pleasantries, there's something off about this town where buttercups bloom year-round, and Hilde can't quite shake the feeling. After discovering the dilapidated ruins of an old home hidden deep within the woods and the brief disappearance of her aunt three decades prior, it isn't long before a grim truth begins to unravel right before her very eyes: everything in this town is connected, and she's stumbled right into the heart of it. There's something in the woods, and it's been watching her for a long, long time.

where can i read this? you can't........... yet.................. but if you stay up to date you'll be the first to know when you can (and get sneak peaks of everything there is to see) =)

what genre is this? psychological thriller/suspense

it doesn't look like that. trust me, there's a lot you haven't seen yet...

i need to get in touch with you for some reason! [email protected]

eleanor is the tertiary protagonist of hillside, among other things… she is a deeply paranoid and obsessive middle-aged woman who lives entirely off the grid in the middle of the woods. her paranoia tends to bleed through every interaction. her only real friend at the beginning of the novel is cricket, and it is a literal miracle that she managed to meet her at all, because she is incredibly difficult and frustrating to be around. she's so off the grid that her house actually does not exist in public/town records, and she is very protective of it… all the windows have the curtains closed, she does not let anyone in, and if youre an expected visitor, the most youre gonna get is a tiny sliver of an immaculate interior as shes squeezing herself thru the smallest crack of her front door. unexpected visitors… well, i cant imagine anyone else would ever find the place, to be honest. ;)

hillside is finally getting a long-needed overhaul that's really been reworking and redefining a lot of "key" aspects from earlier drafts. ive never felt satisfied with earlier concepts and i think i've finally figured out the reason to that was because i was unwilling to change those aforementioned key aspects. all characters are finally no longer highschoolers and are in their early 20s now. i've realized recently as i get older that i simply don't have anything in common with teenagers anymore (even tho its not that big of a gap), and don't think i can tell a just and relatable story about that experience the way i wanted to when i was that age.

additionally, there are some darker topics that i had been wanting to tackle back in hillside's infancy... a lot of them had gotten taken out for a variety reasons, some for not fitting the tone or being unnecessary to the plot, but some also just felt wrong to put teenagers thru lol. that being said, while a lot of those topics aren't going to be coming back, i won't lie and say that aging them up hasn't opened the door for me to explore working some of those into the plot, especially with what i originally had planned for julia.

while i was working on these references, i also tossed up some character playlists based off of the stuff they'd listen to. all taste, but i'm sure these all say something about their characters. hilde's playlist is a good variety of everything theres fetty wap followed by paramore so make of it what you will. she's definitely a california kid at heart. cricket's playlist on the other hand pays pretty heavy homage to her country roots, both new and old and gay :p. there's also a lot of like divorced white dad music, which is to say america and eagles and johnny cash... and evokes a fun image and family dynamic i hadn't considered before

hilde: design wise, i don't think hilde has particularly changed much from her earlier forms, but i'm happy with how she looks. i've always enjoyed warmer colors on her and i feel like with time she's been drifting away from the band girl street fashion look and i really really like it. she's just kind of chill. i'm glad to have an excuse to finally highlight little things about her like everything on her id. she's named after her grandmother, who passed when her mother was pregnant... "niah" was what her planned name was going to be before they changed it to hildegard.

cricket: her hair just keeps getting longer! i think this is the first time i've really been able to say that i'm truly happy and satisfied with her outfit. i've always known how i want her to dress in theory but its been very hard to figure out this defining fashion sense for her. like hilde, i'm happy to have an excuse to show off all of the little details on her id card that i wouldn't really have an excuse to show off otherwise, like her legal name: dahlia willow bloom! both cricket's first and middle names are references, the latter of which being to o willow waly as per a friend's suggestion :) her address is pulled from the map of blossom hills i drew a few months ago. it's not real and it technically isn't a part of the blossom hills town borders but it looked more symmetrical that way :P