The 2016 20th Lexxversary is upon us

Yes, I am working on a few things. Thank you for stopping by (500+ visitors in the last 24 hours), and YES, I promised you guys a Mantrid post, what, 2 months ago? I haven't forgotten.

I hope you all have a wonderful 2016. My house is a bit busy so I'm a bit slow checking stuffs, but I hope to find and share what all the fans are doing over this next year.

THANK YOU again for stopping by, you guys are awesome.

Ellen Dubin gave us Lexx fans a Christmas present

Ellen Dubin is very Lexxcited about the 20th Lexxversary coming up soon and has been enjoying poking me to get all over #ALLTHETHINGS, which is amusing to people who know #aspienado in real life. Yes, some of you may lol, it's cool.

I mean, I've been resisting instagram for awhile, but Ellen has instagram (srsly, click that), so now I do too (Lexxperience was taken, wah), and it appears I shall be learning how to DO MOAR. (Don't forget Ellen also has twitter, G+, and facebook, and very interactive with fans, so she's super winning social media.)

So yesterday just before Christmas exploded at my house, Ellen told me the cool background behind this shot. You can click it to get to this status update on her FB fan page.

I asked if could share the story, she said YES, so this is from Ellen.

And this one clicks out to the link she has in there if you want to see it.

I would love to hear more Lexx trivia from Ellen and other cast and crew, as well. I don't know how they'd feel about the fans doing this, but I wonder if we could politely swarm like Mantrid arms onto some of their facebooks and twitters and leave comments about the Lexx 20th anniversary coming up and how much we'd love to hear more from them.

Ellen has asked me to help share stuff, and I would love if you guys would help me help Ellen. Please share this everywhere and help me find #ALLTHEFANS and point them to Ellen everywhere, because I think she has an idea about doing something fun and cool for the #Lexxversary.

Seasons Greetings from our universe to yours

Safe travels and Happy Holidays from #Lexxperience. Merry #Lexxmas!

click to visit facebook fan page

Stanley the Perfect, the mighty and terrible champion of the oppressed and unjustly maligned majestical being

See a few more Lexx quotes at TVTropes.

Pix and snips click to sources.

Fans who have followed me from the very beginning at GrandFortuna's League of 20,000 Planets way back in 2004-5ish know that Stanley Tweedle is my very favoritist scifi character ever dreamed up, displacing a decade-long first place by Doc Brown from Back to the Future. This might be surprising to fans of other space shows, especially given my lengthy Star Trek rant a few years ago (which went wild when I copied it to SyfyDesigns, a tightly locked forum and controlled for spam). I've recently 'come out' on a personal blog about my long history in fandoms, and after a decade of disgust over quickie review writers still not giving Lexx the kinds of write-ups it deserves, OH YES, I'm going there.

Stanley H. Tweedle, as far as we can piece together, worked in the position of Deputy Assistant Backup Courier within the League as a cover for his part as a double agent for the infamous Ostral-B Heretics, an underground rebel army hellbent on tearing down Order across the League of 20,000. Stan's job at the time of his capture was to smuggle detailed schematics for a new planet-killing bioweapon, along with maps and coordinates, across enemy space and deliver them to the underground. This might have gone without a hitch if he hadn't fallen for an S.O.S. call in transit.

We find out almost immediately that Stanley and Thodin, the notorious Ostral-B leader of the Heretics on His Shadow's most wanted list, seem like they must have known each other personally. Even though Thodin venomously berates Stanley for his failures, Stan is still very glad to see Thodin, not in an "I'm rescued" kind of way (Thodin was clearly not there to rescue Stanley), but in a more familiar way, as Stan's first words to him are a careful but grateful "You're alive!" Thodin isn't just a leader in a rebellion to Stanley. We don't know any more than that.

In season two's "Stan's Trial" we find out Stanley's capture, torture, and confession is directly responsible for the Reform planets being destroyed, most likely the Ostral-B Pair being top of the list. These planets had shielding so they couldn't be found and targeted by His Shadow's planet killers (non-canon, but deduced), the Foreshadow and the Megashadow, as Brunnis 2 was. Part of the information Stanley gave up was the locations of these resistance planets. We finally realize in season 3's "May" that a woman Stanley once loved very much (Lyekka, unrequited) was on one of those planets. All the years Stanley was a prisoner on the Cluster, he didn't know whether anyone he loved or knew had survived at all and that it was all his fault, and he was very publicly held up in the League as Arch Traitor. Everyone on both sides of the ongoing wars hated him, and he knew it.

How in the world Stanley managed to live with himself and stay alive on the Cluster for so long as a Designated Data Cooperator working in the most menial position as a 4th Class Security Guard is neatly condensed into one word spat in his direction so often that he barely flinched- coward. Even Giggerota knew who he was and called him Waste of Skin. He sold out, obviously. Or did he?

Stanley survived out of sheer miscreant stubbornness. He may have been a broken man, but he managed to passive aggressively maintain an attitude that kept him from going under where others might have caved to the tortures and despair that had to have haunted him behind everything for years. One might reflect that he had nothing left to live for, no hope at all, why not just let go? He knew the only way out was death, because he was surrounded by it. He knew he couldn't win all by himself. He knew he could never make a dent in the galaxy-sized machine eating humanity (literally) into a thousand years of strictly controlled slavery. If the reform planets were gone, what hope could there be? Stan was utterly alone.

No beer after work. No friends to talk to. No TV to watch. Nothing to do, nowhere to go, no one to love. No one to blame but himself.

So, you're Stanley. You're on a mission that might help tip the scales in a war that's been going on hundreds and even thousands of years. You're wide open and all indication points toward success. You pick up a distress call in the middle of your mission. Do you ignore it and leave people to die? It looks like you've got time and space to go help, so why not? I mean, who wouldn't? That doesn't seem like a coward to me.

But that wasn't the problem. The problem was stopping off at a pleasure ship before that happened, while on the mission. The problem was bragging a little to the wrong person, who passed info along for bait later. The problem was Stanley caving to a weakness for some attention and a good time. The problem was that Stanley compromised the most important mission of his life because he got a big head and couldn't help showing off a little in a place he thought wouldn't hurt anything. But you know what? That still doesn't sound like a coward. It was an inappropriate decision, yes. It was a stupid braggart move that tempted the fates, you betcha.

So anyway, he spilled the beans. Coward. But did you see what they were doing to prisoners on the Cluster? We never really find out how much torture Stanley went through from mercenaries before he broke, and how much more torture he surely must have gone through once he was handed over to His Shadow, but we do know he never gave up the rest of the information embedded in another tooth. THAT doesn't sound like a coward.

I'd like to propose that Stanley is more of a whiner than a coward. He doth protest, sometimes too much. Wouldn't you? He has really good reasons most of the time. He's been through crap most people haven't, he really doesn't want more.

I think my favorite Stanley scene is when he's making the Divine Predecessors sing a song that praises him, and threatening them with a cluster lizard if they don't cooperate. Up to that point, no human in Cluster history had ever dared taunt, belittle, and demoralize humanity's biggest enemy, and I doubt very many had ever handled cluster lizards of any size, even in the torture arenas.

Ok, I've overstated my point, can we move on now, you're saying. NO. I think it's important to understand how Stanley survived. He survived more stuff far longer and way more personally than just about anyone in the whole series, and he's talked about the least. He's easily dismissed because he's a whiner, a grumbly guy. I would be, too, after all that crap. Would you be as nice as Stanley after all that crap? I'm going to point out some cool things about Stanley Tweedle.

Stan is just as lonely as Zev/Xev. They're alone on a big ship. Yes, he's a bit of a selfish bastard sometimes, but he never once tries to rape or hit her. (I just spoke volumes to people who might've missed that part.) They're both coming from the blackest pit of evil where abuses and atrocities are common everyday things, and Stanley never once inflicts Zev/Xev with his personal whims. He's not exactly a gentleman, but he's not awful, either. Maybe he's not the cool suave hero she wants, but he's the man who saved her and whisked her away from a horrible life. When reviewers blow Stanley off over being rejected by a love slave, what I see is a brother-sister relationship growing where both of them have been stripped not only of their families, but their very selves. They were two naked and pitiful souls running into each other in the pit of hell, and neither one ever let go of having the other's back. I think it's marvelous that two people who could have easily come to despise each other became so close through all that thick and thin. By the end of season three, they've even literally been through hell together.

I have so much respect for Stanley surviving all that without becoming a monster himself, a monster he was purported to be by other monsters, the 3 biggies coming to mind being His Divine Shadow, Grand Prosecutor Jihana, and Prince. He came close in season 3, didn't he? Perilously close! Had it not been for Prince's devious scheming through May, though, I doubt he'd ever have gone that far in his mind on his own. While Stanley's not a coward, and totally a whiner feeling sorry for himself (who wouldn't?), he's also not really a monster.

He's broken. He's an emotionally shattered person who holds it together somehow, and season 3 gives us a glimpse into how sad he's really been all this time. He hides his sadness behind that word coward. He allows others to think the worst of him because there's no way anyone will ever see him cry. And when his sadness finally comes out to the surface, Prince uses everything he's got (the cruelest woman in his minion) to pull Stanley toward his own selfish end game. Is Stanley a monster for falling for it? I think Prince pushed him to a precipice- he was already responsible for all those other planets, how could one more really mean anything now? Especially if it meant someone would finally love him after all this time. Don't be too quick to judge. We all know people in real life who've sold out their own families for another hit or a gambling problem. Stanley is us. He is the picture of who we are when we are broken, and promised beautiful things if we'll only do something for very bad people.

There are better words we can use with Stanley. Cynical is a really good one. I'm surprised he's not either a meaner person or curled up in a blubbering ball. I don't know about you guys, but I know several crabby cynical guys, easy to blow off as jerks until you stop and take a second look at how they got that way in the first place, and then you see that underneath it all is a sweetheart needing a second chance and maybe never getting it. As Prince so carefully coaxed out on The Beach, Stan is harder on himself than anyone. Watching two halves of his own conscience condemn him is proof of that.

This guy carried the weight of 94 blown up Reform planets, accidentally unleashed a monster (Mantrid) that destroyed an entire universe, wound up in hell even though he didn't do what Prince wanted him to, and above all, was reminded of the woman he loved and lost every time an alien plant showed up. I cannot help but love this character.

This pic still clicks back to content that is no longer there.
Sorry about that.

I also discuss Stanley Tweedle in these articles, click to read beyond the snips-

Why Lexx Is Important-
Stan is the Everyman, the average person who winds up caught in the stuff all around him everywhere he goes. He’d *like* to be the hero, but he’s a normal person with normal flaws, and it’s easy to see how we might also be just like him.

Why Lexx Is Personal-
Stanley Tweedle is my all-time favorite scifi character because the twisted irony that swims through spacetime around that guy makes me laugh and want to hug people for all the suckiness they go through, even when I’m feeling crabby. If anyone could finger His Shadow, I’m really glad it was him, because he’s like the rest of us, stumbling through our days and stubbornly hoping for the best even if the only way we can get it is to make it up.

and these film review sections-

I Worship His Shadow- part 3- Stanley Tweedle

I Worship His Shadow- part 7- Termination

Stanley Tweedle was played by Brian Downey.


note

{(This is important for fans who don't know my very publicly misconstrued history with Brian. Guys, I like him. It doesn't matter what people say, what he concludes, what accidents happen, all that matters is that I love Lexx and Stanley Tweedle is my favorite. We don't need to cross streams because I'm not over there in other streams, I'm here being a fan of a TV show.)}

Lexx Collectibles

Probably the hardest thing on Lexx fans is the severe lack of collectible merchandise that many other fandoms enjoy. No Lexx character Funko dolls, no jointed posable action figure sets, no Lego sets with additional pieces, no life-sized wall clings or cutouts, no t-shirts and plushies and back to school/college paraphernalia. While other fans enjoy every conceivable concoction from bedroom accessories and home decor to edible cake decorations, Lexx fans hoard what little was promo'd and create the rest from scratch.

A few of us have this poster.


I'm not going to make an exhaustive list of what is out there, whether they were promotional materials created during filming and broadcasting, or created by fans. I've seen everything from high dollar paintings to homemade designer jewelry and everything in between. Fans are marvelously creative and inventive, and the really tenacious ones go to great lengths and sometimes expense creating everything from hand cast models and dolls to digital renditions for videos and games.
My biggest personal challenge is my drive to catalog everything I find into a library and then I feel really bad when I've exposed something that winds up being a legal problem and removed from public view. That doesn't stop fans from creating. It does, however, make them feel more alone.
In the old days, I shared hundreds of links that added to the overall fan network that other fans started building before me. As time has passed, as web hosts have fallen by the wayside, as some fans have moved on, the network has become a little more scattered into old and new camps. The new camps use a tagging system that, once discovered, works wonderfully, but doesn't show up in search parameters unless someone understands this system.
For instance, I can search 'Lexx tumblr' and get these right at the very top of the search, because it looked for tumblr tags contained within a blost host that has its own search engine, and everything goes straight to other fans talking and sharing, all nicely gathered into its own stream.

However, if I only look for 'Lexx' I wind up with the same old list going to wikipedia, imdb, amazon, another wiki, and some older fansites that haven't been updated in ages. Even though there are still active fans all over the planet, they don't show up in Lexx searches unless you use the right words.
Tags and hashtags are crucial if you want to find other fans and see what they're doing. For instance, when I put '#Lexxperience' in a search bar, I get my own twitter hashtag feed links in its own stream, or anything leading to my Lexxperience network. Since Lexx is a common name, other people also use "Lexxperience", but since I'm flooding the webs and social media with it, I wind up at or near the top of search lists.
Ok, now let's have some fun. I put 'Lexx Lego' into search and among the rare gems was this cute little pic on pinterest, which linked to this forum thread, and a post in the forum linked back to the original site, and from there I easily found the 'Lego Sci-fi' link, and therein was Lexx Lego dated back to 2002. Another fantastic gem that showed up in the Lexx Lego image search was this awesome construction dated to 2009. A direct link to the photo is offered at the bottom of the page, but that's all it is, an embeddable link.
View on black
Facebook makes it really easy now to share the Lexx related stuff I run into, all I have to do is put the link address into a post and Facebook automatically pulls in the link and a description, sometimes a sample of the text content and a graphic, so when I do run into fan stuff I'm trying to remember to share it to my Lexxperience page on Facebook. I'm still getting used to doing that, it's not an automatic reflex for me yet.
The flaw with Facebook and Twitter is that there are a million people calling themselves Lexx on this planet, plus there is an actual Lexx dance club and other businesses with Lexx in the name, and then other famous people using a Lexx moniker, and parody accounts galore using Lexx character names that go far beyond roleplay into actual extreme politics or porn. I got into a fight on twitter my first year back with a right winger for using the Brunnen-G fight song buried in his content to pull in followers, because he obviously had no clue what Lexx even was, and his new followers weren't checking his background and kept retweeting the Brunnen-G song. I really don't care what someone's political or religious affiliation is, just don't use my favorite show to spam your propaganda. Since then I've run into so many people using Lexx tropes and characters for their own spin that I no longer care. As a television show, Lexx has gone through the social media grinder like nothing else I've ever seen, and still I find new fans all over the planet, fans who appreciate the actual show for what it really is and are trying almost desperately to find more of it, as opposed to porn.
The more I link other Lexx fanstuffs, and the more I write about linking other Lexx fanstuffs, the easier I help make this stuff to find in search engines. That's the key. In the olden days (about a decade ago), search was a simple cataloging system that ranked sites in order of which was most seen, and that remains a real blockade in the way for Lexx fans looking for new stuff, because breaking through that barrier is crucial, unless you're fine with obsessively combing through a hundred pages of links. I'm not as patient as I used to be. Until fans figure out the tagging system and the results start outranking the established dead end zone, that basic unchanging search list will continue to blockade the first several pages with somewhat outdated material. It makes the fandom look 'dead'.
There really is new stuff out there. If you play around a little with tightening up your search parameters to specific phrases, you find other fans much faster than simply looking for Lexx. Finding other fans means finding new content. The key to finding other fans is searching tags in host sites. 'Lexx Facebook' kinda backfires because there are a million people using the nickname Lexx. Same with twitter. I pretty much own the 'Lexx Xanga' search, but there are a lot of Lexx fans showing up on pinterest now, and you can get to some of them really fast using a 'Lexx Pinterest' search.
One really super cool way to find other fan stuff fast is searching 'Lexx Fans' and clicking the images option, like this. Just about the fastest way to find anything on the planet now is through image search. You get every host site out there who has posted Lexx graphics, including art sites, blogs, interviews, pinterest, etc.
The goal is to find other fans talking about Lexx, because they are the ones creating new stuff. I've been data mining Lexx for about ten years now and I'm really good at finding obscure, abandoned, forgotten stuff that sometimes turns out to be really cool. I'm trying to stream stuff I find into #Lexxperience on twitter and through Lexxperience on Facebook, and I'm trying to help fans network to other sources through a public group and my fan blogs. I think a few other Lexx fans around the world are having the same idea, because I'm seeing other new link hub sites going up.
I'm not an exhaustive source base for Lexx. I could be, but I made the decision a long time ago not to be the guru. I've been called a Lexx queen, lexx pimp, and just recently, a Lexx goddess, but that's only because I make myself so visible. I'm more of an epic fail facepalm type that bumbles through the day collecting junk like a packrat while I obsess over little tidbits of coding, and that's only in between several really big projects I'm working on that have nothing to do with Lexx. I happen to be a Lexx fan blogger who overthinks things and notices stuff and y'all don't see me right now staying sane watching a super hyper 2 year old while her mama works overtime by sneaking off to my laptop to write a few sentences in between snacks and toys and looking out windows, jumping off the couch, and racing up the stairs. I'm Lexxausted. Lexxhausted? Which one looks better? lol
Anyway, if you guys want more Lexx, get out there and find each other. I guarantee there are fans out there making cool stuff and would be delighted to see some new traffic and comments and stuff. If all that sounds worky and you'd like an easier start, here you go. Other fans abound, click and go find them.
Follow Janika Banks's board Lexx on Pinterest.

#Lexxversary

From an update I just did at GrandFortuna's League of 20,000 Planets- LEXX 20th Anniversary- 2016

#Lexxversary

Sorry, I'm a hashtag junkie, couldn't help it.

Lexxverse.com has got a rocking Lexx 20th Anniversary page up on Facebook already filling up with tons of stuff from filming, including behind the scenes, artwork and schematics, sets and costuming, just an incredible walk through an amazing amount of Lexx memorabilia. I am delighted to see this happening, and I know an incredible amount of work is going into it.

Ok, back to Lexxperience here. You guys know (especially on twitter) I'm a terrible fan because I'm a scattered mess and have too many projects going, BUT I'm pretty sure there is more going on out there and I'll eventually find it. Some fans PM and DM me about this or that with the actors, and if it's unrelated or not directly related to Lexx itself, I generally don't pass that info along. However, I'm quite happy to pass along anything Lexx and Lexx fan related, especially now that this big anniversary party is going worldwide. I'm not planning on doing anything particularly special for 2016 myself because I'm swamped, but that doesn't mean I don't care. I'll be looking around for MOAR and ALL THE THINGS as time permits, but it's ok if you guys tag me somewhere and say Here's my link.

I'm Lexxcited.

Why talking about LEXX is still so important

I'm having an interesting week. I discovered from stats that there is a real country called Brunei. This clicks out to the original tweet two days ago. You can see the full size chart here.

At first I thought it was some kind of joke, like maybe I acquired a new bot or something, or maybe someone with a Brunnen-G fetish was vacationing in Brunei and thought it would be funny, or was stuck in a hotel room with nothing to do.

Brunei Tourism

But I woke up to this again. It clicks out to full size.

It's been like this the last couple of days. Brunei very suddenly consumed my stats.

You can see from this monthly stat chart that this being a very recent event holds true.

I got curious and looked deeper into Brunei.

"Its ruling royals, led by the head of state Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, possess a huge private fortune and its largely ethnic-Malay population enjoy generous state handouts and pay no taxes.

A British protectorate since 1888, Brunei was the only Malay state in 1963 which chose to remain so rather than join the federation that became Malaysia. Full independence came relatively late in 1984.

Despite a significant non-Muslim minority presence in the country and strong condemnation from international rights group, in 2014 Brunei became the first East Asian country to adopt strict Islamic sharia law which allows punishment such as stoning for adultery and amputation for theft."

Sharia law?



Ok, now I understand why my Zev vs Xev post blew up over there, because most of what I said is about the repression of women by a strict government. The date on the Zev/Xev post is one day before my tweet noticing the Brunei hits.

I challenge ANY cult scifi reviewer writing about Lexx to top this. THIS is why I stand up for Lexx, no matter what people say about it, because it so elegantly depicts the horrific parts of humanity that we are too delicate to discuss.

This is where a tweet would say *drops mic*.

You can see more Zev and Xev here.

I made this. Feel free to use it.

Zev vs Xev

Click for the complete Lexx series at Amazon.com

Pix click to sources.

One of cult scifi's hottest debates is Zev or Xev. Both in real life are cool European models/actresses. But this isn't real life, is it?

This is Lexx.

In a coexistent universe overlapping our own, in the same place, at the same time, Order was making a mockery of the human race across a League of 20,000 Planets. Human beings had been locked into a darker than Orwellian regime for thousands of years, and there was no such thing as freedom of choice, reality TV, or even shopping. Although all of humanity living under His Shadow played their parts in that rigidly controlled and regulated society, women especially were considered inferior, relegated by government to reproduction and slave service if they were unfit for other useful fields, such as bureaucracy and military. Make one mistake, and you could disappear into a judicial process that would repurpose your usefulness into parts for robotic drones. Everyone had a place.

Zev's place was in a box.

B3K- Lexx Wiki

The wife bank was a huge government sanctioned processing center, one of probably several kinds of what we'd innocently call boarding schools, for parents in menial roles that didn't allow room for parenting. At least their girls in the wife banks would be housed and fed during their reeducation into the mundane roles of laborer, service, wife, and prostitute. There was no shame in the programming schools taking over for kids who came from lesser families, for kids who didn't fit in with the aggressive compliance that Order required from families higher up on the food chain (literally).

ThePicBug

At first glance, we assume Zev wound up at the wife bank because she was abandoned, but if we look at the hopelessness pervading all of humanity under the Shadow of Order, I believe her parents either did what they thought was right or were pressured into doing it, maybe both. Best let go early before the horrors of Correction removed her later. No doubt this also included children who asked too many questions and took initiatives that were not in compliance with Order, and were therefore in constant danger of disappearing, being swallowed up in Corrections and never heard from again. I'm sure parents openly questioning or protesting children being removed from their families or whatever social structure there was were met with equal retribution, quashing all thought of doubting Order. Thinking outside the box wasn't allowed. Problem solving skills came with hefty guidelines, and coloring inside the lines led to longer lives.

ThePicBug

So being turned over to the wife bank nearly from birth may actually have extended Zev's life. As we watch her emotionally mature through the series, we realize her natural questioning and initiative were already deeply rooted and she would never be able to accept living as a slave to Order, in any capacity, confirmed by her rapid decline into harsh sentencing after she automatically defended herself almost as soon as she had graduated the wife bank. I believe her parents extended her chances for survival when they submitted her to the wife bank, even if the whole scene seems lame and inexcusable from our point of view. What else could they do? She'd have questioned everything growing up and drawn attention to herself.

ThePicBug

It's very hard to imagine a society without concepts for family solidarity, holiday gatherings, or even the possibility of happiness. Such large scale repression made it impossible for families to thrive at all unless they wholeheartedly supported Order and used their every waking moment to excel in serving it, as we see in the scene of children being awarded Merits of Service. Their parents likely ranked much higher and were more deeply entrenched in loyalty, and therefore had access to opportunities and the perks that came with them. Under His Shadow, this loyalty undoubtedly went far beyond anything we think of as Big Brother, as we see good children being rewarded with special invitations to mass executions akin to Superbowl sized sporting events.

We aren't privy to much of Zev's brainwashing, but we can assume some of it was pretty explicit so she'd be ready to be a good wife. Lexx fans have seen me dancing daintily around ignoring her matron coaching her on the "tower of power" scenes in the past, which immediately clue us in on how deeply sexist and layered society would be around her once she got out of that box. Lexx very clearly shows us both child and sex slavery in efficiently short scenes that leave us hanging with disturbing clues to how deeply controlling His Shadow has become over billions and billions of people that amount to him as little more than cattle in a breeding program.

I wrote all of the above to contrast the 'smut in space' mentality some scifi reviewers have had for Lexx. Fine, if that sells the show, because that's one way to sell the deeper content. Of course it's smut in space, a love slave escaped on the most powerful weapon of destruction in the two universes.

I Worship His Shadow- part 8- Zev Bellringer

I could do an entire chapter on lusticons and what their impact would be on our own society. In Zev's world, however, they were little more than sophisticated DNA resequencers that forced women into such menial roles that they had expiry dates. They were remade to be used up and thrown away. Yes, they were remade into Beauty itself, the stuff of dreamers and poets, but along with that their minds were also stripped down to compulsive service and little else. To give readers some context, I'll cross the line of bad taste and simply ask- which would you prefer, your wife to be a real person like original Zev, or a mistress that's nothing more than a responsive doll? It's a trick question, because deep down we all want both, don't we? Be honest and admit it- we want to be able to use people without repurcussion and consequence, without guilt and self loathing. And Order makes this possible. No guilt, no conscience. Just a lusticon and a very smoothly running society. If you don't want to be made into a love slave, you do your time in a box and color inside the lines. Once you're a love slave, you're no longer a citizen. You are government property and allotted like merchandise with no regard to your feelings, your misery, your sadness, and leaving behind everyone you ever cared about or loved.

It's really important to see this from the Lexx point of view to really get all the rest of Lexx. So many viewers admit confusion, especially by season four, when it's really quite simple. All broken people want is real love, forgiveness, freedom... If you've never been around that kind of broken, you probably won't get Lexx.

All it took was one confused punch after being publicly insulted

So Zev majorly failed years of repressed wife preparation and found herself slung into the heart of the mass butchering of other poor souls not toeing the lines, actually felt ripped off that instead of being put out of her misery she'd be stripped of the last of her menial rights and be forced to ride that tower of power the rest of her quickly expiring days, and not even against her will because even that would be taken away from her via brainwashing program, and how do you even process all that while you're bolted to a slab and nothing but machines and a robot around you? Zev grew up without the warmth of humanity, yet she so beautifully expresses that very thing through the rest of the series.

So let's psyche eval Zev, the escaped love slave. First of all, surreal. Can you even imagine making it through the lusticon and suddenly the world around you has changed? The robot is broken, there's bloody cluster lizard mess and a giant (at least twelve feet long) decapitated cluster lizard on the floor, and whadayaknow, the bands are suddenly easy to pull away from their bolts on the slab. Zev doesn't seem very phased, because her entire life has been so boxed. She's simply in another box right now, a room with automatic equipment still going. And she's had a really long stupid day/week (we have no idea how long she was bolted to that slab for the trip to the Cluster), her crankiness has leveled up exponentially from the new cluster lizard DNA just incorporated into all her cells, and she's in no mood to waste time freaking out about anything. She's just pissed. And you know how funny ugly situations get when a person is a way past cranky. That's right, let's toss a robot head into a brainwashing program and giggle. Surreal.

These come from ThePicBug and click out to larger.

  

Seeing her reflection was a shock. Her struggle with Stan over who would be the human shield was pure instinctual reflex. The grab for the robot head to open the door happened in that hyper aware 'we're gonna die' state. Her dive through the doors and into fugitive escape with Stanley was coincidence. The world just kept flipping upside down over and over. We never see Zev (or Xev) go through this kind of pure flight response again. Everything she goes through after her initial flight response is calculated and consciously thought through, defying the fate that was originally intended for her as a mindless love slave. (I'm still facepalming over 'smut in space'. Really? How shallow are some of these reviewers?)

ThePicBug

By the time we reach season two, we've all fallen in love with Zev. She's way more than feisty and gorgeous, she's real. She's sad and determined and hopeful, and pretty much the tie that binds the crew into a gang with some semblance of a mission. Zev is a decision maker, despite growing up brainwashed in a box, and she very sternly draws her lines around right and wrong. In her heart of hearts, she knows what the good is that she longs for, because she's been so deep in the bad. She's a strong moral character even though she's still trapped in a DNA reboot meant to deconstruct morality into the control mechanism of Order.

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And then she sacrifices her life to save an undead assassin and a traitor. I wept. I don't get very gooey over TV, but that scene ripped me apart. In the midst of being trapped in experimental medical torture fetish, she is the one who makes the moral decision to fight for the right, and since she never grew up being taught what was right, she got that from her own heart. The depths of Zev came out fighting in a greedy world with no hope left, and she died loving the loveless wanderers who had accidentally helped her escape Order. To see a Divine Assassin kneel and lift her slave bands out of her molecular remains was devastating to everyone but himself, because he could not feel it. But intellectually, that was a defining moment after billions had lived out thousands of years of slavery across a galaxy. The fandom went into shock.

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And then the fandom split into camps of delight and outrage when a plant used a recombinant DNA process to reconstruct Zev's remains with the DNA of an astronaut from Potatohoe, and we get our beautiful love slave reborn, complete with memories, because Lyekka the plant felt sorry for Stanley's loneliness. Think about this- a living 'lusticon' function, a remanufacturing out of love, no brainwashing this time, and Xev is reborn and given back to the crew as a gift. It was weird and sweet and weird... And it's not our Zev, but it's still Xev, as she knows herself, but redefined. Kinda creepy, but still very beautiful. So... is she part Potatohoe-an? Sort of the astronaut's daughter? Did Lyekka impart any plant DNA into her as well? None of these questions seem to come up, but she's definitely still part reconstituted cluster lizard. (@bonenado adds "out of instant potatoes".)

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We watch Xev struggle through the rest of the series with what is it she really wants. First we see her relive what seems like teenager/young adult years, except now she's no longer in a box and sparkling with the delight and joy of sexual discovery. As season two goes on, we watch her mature and take sides on right and wrong, tolerating abuse from Mantrid and then stepping up in Brigadoom to fight for a cause. By the time season two ends, Xev knows exactly what love is, and how deeply it will sacrifice itself.

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Throughout season three we watch Xev go through the heartbreaking layers of being sweetly romanced by nefarious evil with ulterior motive. Xev starts out innocently believing she has finally found love at long last, only to realize she's been used for purposes that go against her strengthening moral principles. Considering that Xev came from deep in the heart of uncompromising moral deprivation, Prince finds she's not so easy to seduce, and even rivals his indestructible ambition with her indestructible cluster lizard tenacity, going so far as to outlast him on his own planet, outwit him at his own game, and even threaten him with her own brand of instinctual cluster lizard evil. She definitely has an edge over falling prey to the Prince of darkness, being only half human, a first for the planet Fire, which allows only human souls to pass into its realm.

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After the shock of going through season three, season four feels a little confusing, but stay focused. Remember that Zev/Xev came from Order. She came from repression, matured through the kinds of moral ambiguity that break people, she discovered her strength against evil, and now she's finally reached a place in the Two Universes that has never been touched by the long arms of Order- Earth. We don't know if Earth humans are a surviving remnant that escaped the Insect Wars many millennia ago, much like Kai's people did for awhile, but Earth has developed all kinds of evils of its own, from governments to black market, and we get to see what happens when a genuine love slave created in the darkest heart of true evil does when she's kidnapped for porn, used to spike reality show ratings, fought over for unrequited love, captured for black market organ theft, handling a real job as a counselor, and most of all, finding out what Kai would have been like if he'd been born on Earth and how their relationship would have turned out.

Original Zev is played by Lisa Hynes.

Zev is played by Eva Habermann.

Xev is played by Xenia Seeberg.

Unlike many fans, I do not have a preference for one actress or another, and don't wish to see canon changed. The continuity works just fine for me, and I appreciate Zev/Xev in all her forms. Remembering that her character essence is what this show is all about means more to me than having favorite actors. I think they all did wonderful work and sincerely portrayed so many offenses against women with sweetness and strength of form. Following Zev's/Xev's journey across the Two Universes has deeply affected me personally, and if/when I come back to another post on Zev/Xev, I'd like to look more deeply into her role in the prophecies about the cycles of time.

More reading from other fans-
Zev and Xev Bellringer of B3K
Zev&Xev

Talking About Lexx

Snips click to sources.

Lexx will be 20 years old next year.

A couple of the directors brought this up in a convo yesterday on Facebook.

If you don't or can't pull up Facebook, here you go.

Repeat of the last snip. That's two main character actors on board now, as well.

Lexx is still a big deal. Just the other day a Stargate podcaster alerted me on twitter to a new Lexx podcast episode.

Here is that podcast. I haven't listened to it yet, but you can see people are still discovering Lexx all the time.

And that embed code just commandeered what looks like a lot of empty space. Moving on.

I also discovered a few months ago that there is a regular WordPress update for the Lexx Appeal podcast by @Diamandahagan and @TimeLordOmega www.theomegageek.com. Blogger is fighting me resizing the embed code, but this snip clicks to my original tweet link.

So you guys get your cosplays and collectibles ready for the 20th anniversary next year, get pix and linx and all your fan stuff pulled together, and if you don't have your own blogs or sites to share to, grab one of us who do (any of us, this isn't a competition) and I'll try to link to everything I can find so everyone can see everyone else's stuff.