Inside High Tides How Netty Neal and Fernanda are bringing Clara and Valerie’s story to life
Faceless Design Collective creator Netty Neal talks about her collaboration with Fernanda on HIGH TIDES and the WLW story of Clara and Valerie.
HIGH TIDES has developed far beyond its original beginnings, growing from a written story into a visual WLW project with an expanding audience across social media and YouTube. At the centre of that evolution is the relationship between Clara and Valerie, alongside a creative collaboration between Fernanda and Faceless Design Collective creator Netty Neal.
The project first began on Wattpad before moving onto Instagram and later developing further through YouTube, allowing the story to gradually become more visual and accessible to a wider audience. Each stage has given Clara and Valerie’s relationship another way to connect with viewers while keeping the emotional core of the original story intact.
For Netty, that emotional foundation is a major part of what makes HIGH TIDES interesting. Her involvement with the project brings together several areas already central to Faceless Design Collective, including music, visual storytelling, technology and LGBTQ+ narratives built around character connection.
Rather than approaching HIGH TIDES simply as another project to attach music to, the collaboration with Fernanda gives FDC the opportunity to become part of a developing fictional world. Clara and Valerie remain at the centre, while the music and visuals help strengthen the atmosphere surrounding their relationship and give individual moments greater emotional weight.
The route from Wattpad to Instagram and YouTube also reflects how independent storytelling is changing. A story no longer has to remain in the format in which it first appeared, and HIGH TIDES has been able to move between written and visual forms while building its audience along the way.
That flexibility makes it a particularly natural fit for FDC. Netty has already spoken about wanting to work without being restricted to one medium, and HIGH TIDES allows music, imagery and narrative to exist alongside one another rather than as separate creative projects.
Clara and Valerie’s relationship is central to that appeal. The story gives the project a strong emotional through-line, while the visual format allows smaller moments between the two characters to become just as important as the larger developments in their relationship.
For viewers discovering HIGH TIDES now, the project also shows what can happen when independent creators use the tools available to them to take a story further. What began as writing on Wattpad now has a growing visual identity, music connected to the world around the characters and an audience able to follow the project across several platforms.
Netty and Fernanda’s collaboration is another example of the wider creative direction developing around Faceless Design Collective. FDC is increasingly becoming a space where music can connect directly with storytelling, particularly around LGBTQ+ projects where emotion and character remain at the heart of the work.
HIGH TIDES is still developing, but its journey from written story to visual WLW series has already created a distinctive world around Clara and Valerie. With Fernanda continuing to develop the story and Netty contributing through FDC, there is plenty more exciting opportunities for that world to expand.
Follow SoapLandTV for more FDC and HIGH TIDES updates and content. Follow Faceless Design Collective on Instagram, Threads and YouTube, and listen on Spotify and Apple Music for the latest releases.
Image: Faceless Design Collective / HIGH TIDES
