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A RETROSPECTIVE ON RESIDENT SLEUTHS

Resident Sleuths original concept © 2017-2023 by Richard Mandel

Resident Evil ©® Capcom, Ltd., all rights reserved.

PREV -->

--------------------

It's been five years since Resident Sleuths enjoyed its original short-lived run, but as I look back on it I'm still as fond of it now as I was then. I really enjoyed doing Sleuths. As it turned out it would be my last major Resident Evil fan fiction work, but that said I think it's fair to say that it was definitely original and definitely unique. No one else up to that time, not even Capcom itself, had considered the storytelling possibilities of taking the four major Resident Evil Raccoon City era heroines - Jill Valentine (RE1, RE1R, REUC, RE3, RE3 REmake), Rebecca Chambers (RE0, RE1, RE1R, REUC), Claire Redfield (RE2, REDC, RE2 REmake), and Elza Walker (RE1.5) - and putting them together in an all-new environment completely devoid of the zombies and monsters and other undead trappings of the typical Resident Evil adventure and letting them shine at doing something different for a change. For me it was as much fun as it was a challenge to do, and even if part of my original plans ultimately went unfulfilled due to its cancellation because of low audience numbers, I'm still very proud of Resident Sleuths all the same. I know the two dozen people or so I had following it back then enjoyed it (chuckle), and I'm glad it's reaching a greater audience by far today with its recent re-release. I also want to thank Capcom for not objecting to this re-release of Sleuths, just as they refrained from objecting to it as such back in the day. Perhaps they had more important things on their mind than worrying about this strange and unusual but highly original web comic in which our Fave Four got their chance to shine at something else instead of being everybody's fan fave zombie hunting "girls with guns." (grin) Who knows?

Speaking of which, and with regards to RE1.5's Elza Walker in particular, Resident Sleuths is one of two things that helped define Elza's character and personality back at that time and as you know her today. The other is of course my fanfic novel Resident Evil: Exodus - The Tale of Elza Walker. Both may be set in alternate realities with Elza doing different things and having many different experiences in each, and yet she essentially remains the same as a well-rounded character in both, with behavior and traits and both a life outlook and life experiences that are definitely hers. That too I am proud of doing as a writer. If there's anything for which I want to be remembered with regards to my contributions to the Resident Evil fan community, this is the one I hope and wish it to be: for taking the cardboard cutout that was Capcom's original take on Elza Walker in the cancelled RE1.5 and turning her into a believable and fully developed person that all of you folks in general can appreciate as a person. Know what I mean? There's also the fact that my take on Elza Walker, like Resident Sleuths and the older Exodus, is definitely unique. I don't mind if any of you want to key off of what I did with Elza, just as others already have and to the enjoyment of us all, but I ask that if you do then you keep her essentially the same as I reinvented her for my own stories: not her physical model necessarily (as I know a lot of you prefer Kit's model of her and that's fine) but her as a person, if you know what I'm saying. You don't have to reinvent her again unless you just want to. She's already there and fully developed as a character thanks to my efforts with Exodus and Sleuths. I hope she works well for you.

I also thoroughly enjoyed letting the other "canon" RE heroines - Jill, Rebecca, and Claire - strut their stuff in also doing things and having experiences that they never had as part of the "canon" Resident Evil franchise (a-hem), or that Capcom never let them do at the time. I'd like to think they've softened on that just a bit in the years since Sleuths was first released, but I'm not about to claim any credit for that. I'm fairly certain that Sleuths had and is having a bigger impact by far with you than with them. That said, where else do you see Jill acting as a leader? Rebecca putting her piano playing talent to good use? Claire proving to be one hell of an amateur singer? Elza always ready with the quick quip whenever she feels the situation calls for one? Where else do you get to entertain the notions of Jill having had a previous past as a private investigator, or working her way through college as a nude art model (!), or having to babysit her three younger team members while at the same time doing her best to make them better than they are? What about Rebecca's reference to her past, uhmm, "experiences" (nudge-nudge), or that whole "Rebecca the naughty nun" bit, or that wild film noir style adventure in which she's featured at the end of the series? What about Claire getting to visit Japan twice and becoming fluent in Japanese in the process, or her willing to risk her own life for her friends despite her inexperience the first time she runs into serious trouble, and her constant friendly rivalry with Elza throughout the series? Speaking of Elza again, what about her having previously unknown computer data harvesting skills, or her getting to play naughty nun right alongside Jill and Rebecca, or the time she finds herself in real trouble and getting abducted due to a case of mistaken identity? Finally, what about that reunion between Chris and Jill in the fifth episode, and how I manged to tie that in with the alternate reality of Resident Sleuths? Again, this and more (and even more planned but ultimately left undone) is what you get with Resident Sleuths. I had a ball doing it, and as I said before I'm quite proud of it.

I've already mentioned several times that I had six more episodes in various stages of development, for a full set of an even dozen episodes, before I made the decision to cancel the series at the sixth halfway through due to low audience numbers. Let me give you a quick rundown of how the rest of the series might have gone had the numbers been there back in the day for Sleuths to continue:

07) "Come Together" - Named for the famous Beatles song, this would have been a flashback episode depicting how the four original members of the Sleuths team came together during the Raccoon City T-virus Outbreak in late September of 1998, how they eventually escaped from the Umbrella Security Service (USS) in this alternate version of events, and how once they made good their escape they decided to join the Agency at Jill's suggestion for new careers as "executive troubleshooters." There would have been plenty of action but no zombies or monsters, just the embryonic Sleuths versus the USS as they make good their escape. One bit I was going to borrow from one of the old Dirty Pair TV episodes was Jill surprising a USS paramilitary on guard by dropping her tube top and then having one of the other girls knock him out while he was distracted. When the other two girls arrive shortly thereafter and ask what happened, Jill would have grinned and said, "He got double vision." XD That and a lot more fun was planned for this in an effort to bring in a bigger audience at the time, especially Resident Evil fans, and not only did I have a fully fleshed outline but I even did the first two pages before I made the decision to cancel the last six episodes.

08) "The Thief and the Troubleshooter" - Originally drafted under the working title "If Looks Could Kill," this would have told the tale of the Sleuths having to pursue a mysterious art thief known only as El Escondite (Spanish for "the sneak") and of the unusual connection between him and Jill that complicates matters along the way. Like "Come Together" I had a fully fleshed outline for this one ready for when production began, but of course it never did. This would have been the episode that introduced senior agent Sheva Alomar as Rebecca's (intended) temporary replacement on the Sleuths team, although she would have been back in a different capacity for the final episode.

09) "The Fateful Fashion Show" - This one never got beyond story proposal form. The Sleuths pose as contestants in a beauty pageant in order to get the goods on possible corruption among its judges, one of whom happens to be an old flame of Rebecca's. You've seen the same basic idea in selected episodes of many American TV action-adventure shows with female leads (Charlie's Angels, The Bionic Woman, The Original Wonder Woman, et al). This was planned so I could use the beautiful MoogleOutfitter custom gown wearing versions of the entire Fave Four in their fancy dresses that were so eyecatching then and are still now (FYI you saw Rebecca's gown version in "The Tale of the Torch Singer"). I had also later flagged this for possible deletion and replacement with something new given potential similarities with "The Tale of the Torch Singer," which never happened due to the cancellation of the series.

10) "Test Driver" - Originally sketched out as a story proposal under the working title of "Elza's Motorcycle Adventure," the germ for this one came from the very real fact that Elza Walker is supposed to be a skilled motorcycle racer, and yet we NEVER see her on a motorcycle at any time in the cancelled RE1.5, save for the intended but never produced opening cutscene for her game of her wrecking her bike in the old RPD lobby due to the zombies ganged up outside the building when she arrives. "Test Driver" was inspired by a fairly long deleted scene near the end of "Farewell My Ugly," in which Pierce would have somehow escaped the hospital on foot after trying to kill Rebecca and Claire and then stealing a police motorcycle before high-tailing it out of there. Elza would have ran after him on foot, grabbed another police motorcycle, and then chased him through the streets of Central City, him being unable to lose her due to Elza's motorcycle racing skills. The chase would have ended with Pierce slamming into a truck that pulled across his path, killing him instantly. I reworked this deleted scene into a tentative outline for "Test Driver," in which Elza would have gone undercover as a test driver for a new gas turbine powered motorcycle (NOTE: these are for real!) which somebody was trying to steal for their own ends. Her cover gets blown and she gets chained up inside the same garage as the motorcycle while her captors decide what to do with her. Leave it to the resourceful Elza to wriggle over to the tool bench, find some bolt cutters, and then somehow fix them in a bench vise so she can cut herself loose. After that she uses the bolt cutters to cut the padlock on the garage door and escapes on the new gas turbine motorcycle, with her former captors giving chase in an armed helicopter (shades of Blue Thunder here as well as the Bubblegum Crisis OVA series episode "Midnight Rambler") and the Agency trying to catch up with them both before Elza gets killed. Never got beyond the rough sketch, but it would have been just as fun to do as "The Ride of the Righteous Rollers."

11+12) "The Case of the Vengeful Villian" - This was intended to be the original finale to the full 12-episode run and would have been the only two-parter of the set. Sleuths team supervisor Mickey Sullivan's past comes back to haunt both him and the Sleuths when someone tries to kill him. Elza knocks Mickey out of the way just in time but is badly wounded and permanently crippled in the process (just like in Exodus). Some quick investigation reveals that the perpetrator is an old foe of Mickey's, a master criminal by the name of Vincent le Ciphre (NOTE - the name for the devil as played by Robert de Niro in the feature film Angel Heart), who has just escaped prison. He had sworn revenge on Mickey years before when he was put away back then given Mickey's involvement in his being convicted, and now that he's out he intends on carrying though with his threat by any and all means possible. FYI we would have also learned as the episode unfolded that le Ciphre was one of the people responsible for the death of Mickey's wife Yuki (see "The Inevitable Hot Springs Episode"). This never got beyond the initial story proposal save for a final added note that Elza would have been permanently sidelined given the nature of some of her injuries, which would have more or less forced Sheva to take her place as the new permanent fourth member of the Sleuths team, while Elza took on a new job (thanks to both the Agency and support from her fellow Sleuths team members) as Mickey's combination secretary and personal assistant. That way she could continue to use her data mining skills in support of the Sleuths team proper, just as Nene uses hers for the Knight Sabers at various times in the various incarnations of Bubblegum Crisis.

--------------------

And there you have it. I've talked about what was and what might have been. What about what might still be?

Well, I've often toyed with bringing Sleuths back. As I've repeatedly said it was a lot of fun to do. That said, if I did then I wouldn't bring it back as Resident Sleuths for legal reasons. In their letter to me with regards to my request for commercial publication of Exodus, a request which they turned down (twice), Capcom said among other things to me that I was such a creative person that I needed to be doing my stories with my own characters, settings, and situations, instead of using theirs. It was the nicest rejection letter I've ever gotten and they're right, you know. Everything Resident Evil is their property, not mine. Only those things that are original to me with regards to Sleuths - the format and setup, the stories, my CG model of Elza Walker (a reuse of my own "Miss Cupcake" OC), and so on - are unquestionably mine. Hey, I can take a hint as well as anybody, right? (chuckle) That's why if I ever brought Sleuths back, and as I said I've often toyed with the idea, it would have to be in an all new form with my own characters and so on. I can't use anything of theirs.

At this point in time I don't honestly know if I ever will bring Sleuths back. As I said I'd like to, but it would be a lot of work to reinvent it and yet keep it as fresh and entertaining as Resident Sleuths was. I also know a fair number of you wouldn't like the change even though you would understand why I did it, and there's the danger of yet again losing my intended audience. If you'd like me to revive Sleuths in some way (it can't be Resident Sleuths, remember), please let me know by posting in the Comments below. I would appreciate hearing from you. You input would be most welcome.

Oh, and while I'm at it, and while we're waiting to see if I ever do revive Sleuths in some form, I invite you as the creator of the Sleuths basic format to take it and run with with your own favorite characters. Of course you risk eventually running up against the same wall as did I, but unless the owners of those characters and settings and situations you're borrowing for your fan efforts say something about it (as what happened to me) then you can run for as long and far as you want. You could have a Final Fantasy Sleuths team, for example, or a Dragon Ball Sleuths team, or a Bleach Sleuths team, or whatever you prefer. The only limiters I'm going to put on you is that you follow the same general format as Resident Sleuths (which means one supervisor over a team of of mixed and diverse talented Agency "executive troubleshooters," everybody dresses up when they're at work but otherwise wears what they want as the current assignment requires or whatever they want off the job, wink-wink), and of course NO PORN. You can walk right up to that line as did I, but no going over it. Do yourself a favor and let your audience imagine the rest, okay? Titillate and tease but never reveal. They're going to do a far better job of imagining the rest than you ever could by showing them, and that way not only will you keep things relatively "clean" (wink) but you'll keep them coming back for more.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed the original Resident Sleuths. Be seeing you.

"Richard Mandel"

4 July 2023

P.S. - If any of you would like to tackle the task of producing your own takes on the six unproduced episodes of Sleuths strictly as your own fan effort (nudge-nudge), or of producing additional ones with the Resident Sleuths cast, sing out! I'd love to hear from you.

Description

A RETROSPECTIVE ON RESIDENT SLEUTHS

Resident Sleuths original concept © 2017-2023 by Richard Mandel

Resident Evil ©® Capcom, Ltd., all rights reserved.

PREV -->

--------------------

It's been five years since Resident Sleuths enjoyed its original short-lived run, but as I look back on it I'm still as fond of it now as I was then. I really enjoyed doing Sleuths. As it turned out it would be my last major Resident Evil fan fiction work, but that said I think it's fair to say that it was definitely original and definitely unique. No one else up to that time, not even Capcom itself, had considered the storytelling possibilities of taking the four major Resident Evil Raccoon City era heroines - Jill Valentine (RE1, RE1R, REUC, RE3, RE3 REmake), Rebecca Chambers (RE0, RE1, RE1R, REUC), Claire Redfield (RE2, REDC, RE2 REmake), and Elza Walker (RE1.5) - and putting them together in an all-new environment completely devoid of the zombies and monsters and other undead trappings of the typical Resident Evil adventure and letting them shine at doing something different for a change. For me it was as much fun as it was a challenge to do, and even if part of my original plans ultimately went unfulfilled due to its cancellation because of low audience numbers, I'm still very proud of Resident Sleuths all the same. I know the two dozen people or so I had following it back then enjoyed it (chuckle), and I'm glad it's reaching a greater audience by far today with its recent re-release. I also want to thank Capcom for not objecting to this re-release of Sleuths, just as they refrained from objecting to it as such back in the day. Perhaps they had more important things on their mind than worrying about this strange and unusual but highly original web comic in which our Fave Four got their chance to shine at something else instead of being everybody's fan fave zombie hunting "girls with guns." (grin) Who knows?

Speaking of which, and with regards to RE1.5's Elza Walker in particular, Resident Sleuths is one of two things that helped define Elza's character and personality back at that time and as you know her today. The other is of course my fanfic novel Resident Evil: Exodus - The Tale of Elza Walker. Both may be set in alternate realities with Elza doing different things and having many different experiences in each, and yet she essentially remains the same as a well-rounded character in both, with behavior and traits and both a life outlook and life experiences that are definitely hers. That too I am proud of doing as a writer. If there's anything for which I want to be remembered with regards to my contributions to the Resident Evil fan community, this is the one I hope and wish it to be: for taking the cardboard cutout that was Capcom's original take on Elza Walker in the cancelled RE1.5 and turning her into a believable and fully developed person that all of you folks in general can appreciate as a person. Know what I mean? There's also the fact that my take on Elza Walker, like Resident Sleuths and the older Exodus, is definitely unique. I don't mind if any of you want to key off of what I did with Elza, just as others already have and to the enjoyment of us all, but I ask that if you do then you keep her essentially the same as I reinvented her for my own stories: not her physical model necessarily (as I know a lot of you prefer Kit's model of her and that's fine) but her as a person, if you know what I'm saying. You don't have to reinvent her again unless you just want to. She's already there and fully developed as a character thanks to my efforts with Exodus and Sleuths. I hope she works well for you.

I also thoroughly enjoyed letting the other "canon" RE heroines - Jill, Rebecca, and Claire - strut their stuff in also doing things and having experiences that they never had as part of the "canon" Resident Evil franchise (a-hem), or that Capcom never let them do at the time. I'd like to think they've softened on that just a bit in the years since Sleuths was first released, but I'm not about to claim any credit for that. I'm fairly certain that Sleuths had and is having a bigger impact by far with you than with them. That said, where else do you see Jill acting as a leader? Rebecca putting her piano playing talent to good use? Claire proving to be one hell of an amateur singer? Elza always ready with the quick quip whenever she feels the situation calls for one? Where else do you get to entertain the notions of Jill having had a previous past as a private investigator, or working her way through college as a nude art model (!), or having to babysit her three younger team members while at the same time doing her best to make them better than they are? What about Rebecca's reference to her past, uhmm, "experiences" (nudge-nudge), or that whole "Rebecca the naughty nun" bit, or that wild film noir style adventure in which she's featured at the end of the series? What about Claire getting to visit Japan twice and becoming fluent in Japanese in the process, or her willing to risk her own life for her friends despite her inexperience the first time she runs into serious trouble, and her constant friendly rivalry with Elza throughout the series? Speaking of Elza again, what about her having previously unknown computer data harvesting skills, or her getting to play naughty nun right alongside Jill and Rebecca, or the time she finds herself in real trouble and getting abducted due to a case of mistaken identity? Finally, what about that reunion between Chris and Jill in the fifth episode, and how I manged to tie that in with the alternate reality of Resident Sleuths? Again, this and more (and even more planned but ultimately left undone) is what you get with Resident Sleuths. I had a ball doing it, and as I said before I'm quite proud of it.

I've already mentioned several times that I had six more episodes in various stages of development, for a full set of an even dozen episodes, before I made the decision to cancel the series at the sixth halfway through due to low audience numbers. Let me give you a quick rundown of how the rest of the series might have gone had the numbers been there back in the day for Sleuths to continue:

07) "Come Together" - Named for the famous Beatles song, this would have been a flashback episode depicting how the four original members of the Sleuths team came together during the Raccoon City T-virus Outbreak in late September of 1998, how they eventually escaped from the Umbrella Security Service (USS) in this alternate version of events, and how once they made good their escape they decided to join the Agency at Jill's suggestion for new careers as "executive troubleshooters." There would have been plenty of action but no zombies or monsters, just the embryonic Sleuths versus the USS as they make good their escape. One bit I was going to borrow from one of the old Dirty Pair TV episodes was Jill surprising a USS paramilitary on guard by dropping her tube top and then having one of the other girls knock him out while he was distracted. When the other two girls arrive shortly thereafter and ask what happened, Jill would have grinned and said, "He got double vision." XD That and a lot more fun was planned for this in an effort to bring in a bigger audience at the time, especially Resident Evil fans, and not only did I have a fully fleshed outline but I even did the first two pages before I made the decision to cancel the last six episodes.

08) "The Thief and the Troubleshooter" - Originally drafted under the working title "If Looks Could Kill," this would have told the tale of the Sleuths having to pursue a mysterious art thief known only as El Escondite (Spanish for "the sneak") and of the unusual connection between him and Jill that complicates matters along the way. Like "Come Together" I had a fully fleshed outline for this one ready for when production began, but of course it never did. This would have been the episode that introduced senior agent Sheva Alomar as Rebecca's (intended) temporary replacement on the Sleuths team, although she would have been back in a different capacity for the final episode.

09) "The Fateful Fashion Show" - This one never got beyond story proposal form. The Sleuths pose as contestants in a beauty pageant in order to get the goods on possible corruption among its judges, one of whom happens to be an old flame of Rebecca's. You've seen the same basic idea in selected episodes of many American TV action-adventure shows with female leads (Charlie's Angels, The Bionic Woman, The Original Wonder Woman, et al). This was planned so I could use the beautiful MoogleOutfitter custom gown wearing versions of the entire Fave Four in their fancy dresses that were so eyecatching then and are still now (FYI you saw Rebecca's gown version in "The Tale of the Torch Singer"). I had also later flagged this for possible deletion and replacement with something new given potential similarities with "The Tale of the Torch Singer," which never happened due to the cancellation of the series.

10) "Test Driver" - Originally sketched out as a story proposal under the working title of "Elza's Motorcycle Adventure," the germ for this one came from the very real fact that Elza Walker is supposed to be a skilled motorcycle racer, and yet we NEVER see her on a motorcycle at any time in the cancelled RE1.5, save for the intended but never produced opening cutscene for her game of her wrecking her bike in the old RPD lobby due to the zombies ganged up outside the building when she arrives. "Test Driver" was inspired by a fairly long deleted scene near the end of "Farewell My Ugly," in which Pierce would have somehow escaped the hospital on foot after trying to kill Rebecca and Claire and then stealing a police motorcycle before high-tailing it out of there. Elza would have ran after him on foot, grabbed another police motorcycle, and then chased him through the streets of Central City, him being unable to lose her due to Elza's motorcycle racing skills. The chase would have ended with Pierce slamming into a truck that pulled across his path, killing him instantly. I reworked this deleted scene into a tentative outline for "Test Driver," in which Elza would have gone undercover as a test driver for a new gas turbine powered motorcycle (NOTE: these are for real!) which somebody was trying to steal for their own ends. Her cover gets blown and she gets chained up inside the same garage as the motorcycle while her captors decide what to do with her. Leave it to the resourceful Elza to wriggle over to the tool bench, find some bolt cutters, and then somehow fix them in a bench vise so she can cut herself loose. After that she uses the bolt cutters to cut the padlock on the garage door and escapes on the new gas turbine motorcycle, with her former captors giving chase in an armed helicopter (shades of Blue Thunder here as well as the Bubblegum Crisis OVA series episode "Midnight Rambler") and the Agency trying to catch up with them both before Elza gets killed. Never got beyond the rough sketch, but it would have been just as fun to do as "The Ride of the Righteous Rollers."

11+12) "The Case of the Vengeful Villian" - This was intended to be the original finale to the full 12-episode run and would have been the only two-parter of the set. Sleuths team supervisor Mickey Sullivan's past comes back to haunt both him and the Sleuths when someone tries to kill him. Elza knocks Mickey out of the way just in time but is badly wounded and permanently crippled in the process (just like in Exodus). Some quick investigation reveals that the perpetrator is an old foe of Mickey's, a master criminal by the name of Vincent le Ciphre (NOTE - the name for the devil as played by Robert de Niro in the feature film Angel Heart), who has just escaped prison. He had sworn revenge on Mickey years before when he was put away back then given Mickey's involvement in his being convicted, and now that he's out he intends on carrying though with his threat by any and all means possible. FYI we would have also learned as the episode unfolded that le Ciphre was one of the people responsible for the death of Mickey's wife Yuki (see "The Inevitable Hot Springs Episode"). This never got beyond the initial story proposal save for a final added note that Elza would have been permanently sidelined given the nature of some of her injuries, which would have more or less forced Sheva to take her place as the new permanent fourth member of the Sleuths team, while Elza took on a new job (thanks to both the Agency and support from her fellow Sleuths team members) as Mickey's combination secretary and personal assistant. That way she could continue to use her data mining skills in support of the Sleuths team proper, just as Nene uses hers for the Knight Sabers at various times in the various incarnations of Bubblegum Crisis.

--------------------

And there you have it. I've talked about what was and what might have been. What about what might still be?

Well, I've often toyed with bringing Sleuths back. As I've repeatedly said it was a lot of fun to do. That said, if I did then I wouldn't bring it back as Resident Sleuths for legal reasons. In their letter to me with regards to my request for commercial publication of Exodus, a request which they turned down (twice), Capcom said among other things to me that I was such a creative person that I needed to be doing my stories with my own characters, settings, and situations, instead of using theirs. It was the nicest rejection letter I've ever gotten and they're right, you know. Everything Resident Evil is their property, not mine. Only those things that are original to me with regards to Sleuths - the format and setup, the stories, my CG model of Elza Walker (a reuse of my own "Miss Cupcake" OC), and so on - are unquestionably mine. Hey, I can take a hint as well as anybody, right? (chuckle) That's why if I ever brought Sleuths back, and as I said I've often toyed with the idea, it would have to be in an all new form with my own characters and so on. I can't use anything of theirs.

At this point in time I don't honestly know if I ever will bring Sleuths back. As I said I'd like to, but it would be a lot of work to reinvent it and yet keep it as fresh and entertaining as Resident Sleuths was. I also know a fair number of you wouldn't like the change even though you would understand why I did it, and there's the danger of yet again losing my intended audience. If you'd like me to revive Sleuths in some way (it can't be Resident Sleuths, remember), please let me know by posting in the Comments below. I would appreciate hearing from you. You input would be most welcome.

Oh, and while I'm at it, and while we're waiting to see if I ever do revive Sleuths in some form, I invite you as the creator of the Sleuths basic format to take it and run with with your own favorite characters. Of course you risk eventually running up against the same wall as did I, but unless the owners of those characters and settings and situations you're borrowing for your fan efforts say something about it (as what happened to me) then you can run for as long and far as you want. You could have a Final Fantasy Sleuths team, for example, or a Dragon Ball Sleuths team, or a Bleach Sleuths team, or whatever you prefer. The only limiters I'm going to put on you is that you follow the same general format as Resident Sleuths (which means one supervisor over a team of of mixed and diverse talented Agency "executive troubleshooters," everybody dresses up when they're at work but otherwise wears what they want as the current assignment requires or whatever they want off the job, wink-wink), and of course NO PORN. You can walk right up to that line as did I, but no going over it. Do yourself a favor and let your audience imagine the rest, okay? Titillate and tease but never reveal. They're going to do a far better job of imagining the rest than you ever could by showing them, and that way not only will you keep things relatively "clean" (wink) but you'll keep them coming back for more.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed the original Resident Sleuths. Be seeing you.

"Richard Mandel"

4 July 2023

P.S. - If any of you would like to tackle the task of producing your own takes on the six unproduced episodes of Sleuths strictly as your own fan effort (nudge-nudge), or of producing additional ones with the Resident Sleuths cast, sing out! I'd love to hear from you.