Damn, that’s really unfortunate, and looking at it again, you’re probably right. Alwayswantedto might have passed away. I never really considered him to be that old, mainly because I read most of his stories on StoriesOnline, where they’d all been posted from 2020-2023. So until a few years ago, I assumed he was still actively writing.
I now know that the Alwayswantedto on SOL is just a fan of his work, not the author himself, and that he was only posting on his behalf. Those stories were actually written in the 2000s.
I still wonder why he had his stories removed, though. Maybe it was guilt about his work near the end of his life, or maybe something else
That guy posting Alwayswantedto's stories is nothing more than a fan that wanted to post the real Alwayswantedto's stories and feel like a writer himself. He's not even trading them privately between collectors. He's taking credit for someone else's work and I have no respect for that. He stole them from the author, disregarded his wishes, lied about the author so he could publish them, and made all the stories public. That's wrong.
I know what the basis of this website is, but most of these authors are alive and the classics stories are from the 70s and 80s, publicly published by companies that closed down and those stories were written by writers who no longer care and gave up their rights to those stories long ago. At least here, people are honest about trading stories or posting public stories in easier to manage formats. I've also been lucky enough that people that don't trade my stories publicly when I ask them not to.
Anyway, I told Laz (SOL Owner) that the guy was a fraud and Laz said, "But he has an email from Alwayswantedto that says the guy is his archiver and to wait until he found a suitable site to post his stories after his death."
I can fake an email address. Laz is perfectly fine posting stories that he doesn't have permission to post, so it's a losing battle. The only reason I have an SOL account is so no one can post my stories there in that manner. I'll make my stories public when I'm ready to, not before, and it'll be my choice.
It's funny, because Laz said, "Why would he lie just to post his stories?" then I caught someone on one of SOL's sister sites posing as 8letters and posting 8letters' stories. When I notified 8, he worked it out with Laz and the guy, and I was tempted to ask Laz, "What were you saying about people lying to post stories?" but it's not worth the headache, and honestly, it taught me not to trust Laz.
My personal beliefs, when it comes to this site or any website that deals in other people's stories is this: It's not my job or responsibility to tell people not to post or trade stories that don't belong to me, but I will defend mine. If people trade my stories privately, fine, I get it. I understand it. And what I can't see can't upset me or discourage me from writing more stories, but when it came to Alwayswantedto, the guy posting them lied and the guy publishing them didn't care and that rubbed me the wrong way.
As for why he had his books removed, Always didn't seem to have a problem with anyone, so my guess was that it was to make sure that no one he knew could put 2 and 2 together and discover that he was the author. When you're alive you feel like you have a certain kind of control over things. Death removes that safeguard and people behave in strange ways when they know it's coming. Guilt, fear, bitterness, anger, some kind of need for revenge for dying or a last moment of control over their lives, all of those could have been a reason, or perhaps he developed a nihilistic belief that what he wrote doesn't matter so it doesn't matter if he removes them, who knows?
My personal belief is this: You don't remove stories because you're happy.