THE INEVITABILITISTS: A historic Smith/Neo Matrix fangroup

The Inevitability fangroup was a very early (perhaps THE earliest) Smith/Neo slash community, unusual for its offline nature and its much older, female fanbase (in 1999, the average member was aged around 75!) They shipped Smith/Neo as a romantic pairing, and their work and writings tended to explore a central idea: that Neo and Agent Smith were star-crossed lovers bound by an inevitable, tragic pull across the code of the Matrix. They referred to this connection as "The Inevitability" and this was the name of their ship, of which they were proud crew members known as Inevitabilitists. Together they produced a rich treasure trove of fanfiction, essays, poetry, textiles, zines and heated debates exploring Smith and Neo’s relationship. It seems that there was an old online hub, now long lost, but much of the output of “The Inevitability” never made it online at all: stories and zines were typed, photocopied, stapled up and posted between members. Pins, knitted blankets, embroideries and mixtapes (yes, starting on cassette in 1999) were traded and shared at in-person meetups. The group was predominently UK based, with meetups taking place in cafes and pubs in London and the South East.

The group was divided into different ships within the overall fleet known as The Inevitability - there was the SS Duality for members in London, the SS Obsession, for Sussex. The SS Animosity, for Kent and the SS Reciprocity for members in Surrey. The main purpose of dividing the group up in this way appears to have been to make it easier to arrange local meetups - with each ship having its own annual calendar of meetups and socials as well as the two main annual events for the entire Inevitability fleet - the annual meeting, and the summer picnic. All four ships would get together at these events twice a year.

Crew member Beryl P- ("Shutterbug") was the self designated "ships photographer" and captured many of the meetups and moments at convention stalls, in cafes, living rooms and cinemas, primarily using Gameboy Cameras which she was particularly impressed by. The aesthetic effect produced by this low-res camera was felt by members to be very "Matrixy" in style, and was widely kept as the principle camera for photos used in zines and newsletters, leading to a distinctive aesthetic. Pictures were printed out with the Gameboy camera printer and pasted to master copies, which were then photocopied for wider distribution.

This present archive is an effort by the granddaughter of the late 'Teletype' (Dorothy K) to recover, preserve, and republish as much of that lost material as possible.

Many of the archived items are in physical formats as much of the output took place offline and was physically posted out to members or produced/distributed in meetups. The archive is comprised of typewritten zines and essays, as well as a substantial collection of beautifully hand-crafted embroideries, tapestries and blankets. Some content is digital, but stored on obsolete media like floppy disks. It’s going to take time to digitize and restore these pieces and I want to obtain permission from original creators where contact can still be made before republishing their work. Expect gradual updates – this may take some time! Family members of 'Shutterbug' very kindly sent me her collection of Gameboy Cameras which she used to document Inevitability meetups – I’ve found a way to extract the photos from these using a little USB device and will upload them in due course.

Old crew members of The Inevitability will be glad to know that I have an almost complete collection of the infamous “NOW that’s what I call Smith/Neo” music CDs, running from 1999 all the way up to 2019 when the creator 'Fax' sadly passed away. The original 1999 collection was released on cassette! We are just missing a CD cover for the year 2001 – if anyone out there has this please get in touch. We will work on digitizing these and sharing the playlists (for obvious legal reasons we won’t be able to share the mp3s!).

This archive is an attempt to properly digitize, restore, and (where permissions can be obtained) republish that material for a new generation (or for old operatives who thought it was gone forever). If you hold any zines, fanfiction, fanart, merchandise or photographs please get in touch via the contact page! I would love to hear from you.

Progress will likely be slow!
Work underway includes:

• Digitizing typewritten and handwritten pages of fanfiction
• Restoring content from some obsolete media like floppy disks and hardware belonging to Beryl (“Shutterbug”)
• Running OCR where needed and cleaning up formatting
• Trying to track down original creators for permission to publish fanworks where possible. We’ve made the decision to not republish any work without acquiring permission from the original creator (or their family).