The subject of this article is the emerging genre of internet fan fiction and the way in which this literary genre can offer alternate possibilities to the narrative of the television show it is based upon. Its specific focus is on six stories inspired by characters from the drama series Roswell that fan fiction author Elizabeth Spencer has appropriated for her own purposes. I am going to state that Elizabeth, in writing stories that fill in the gaps in the broadcast material, is reading the medium text in such a way that aims at displacing the “legitimate authors’” voice and subverting authorial meaning. The central argument in my thesis, therefore, is that, in adopting media characters and universe and translating them to the computer screen, Elizabeth succeeds in providing other fans with what I consider to be subversive options.
