And then there are the download services (e.g. http://ficsave.com/), so it's obviously working (not).

You can also get around it, at least in Chrome, by going to the console and entering:

  $('div#storytextp.storytextp').css('-webkit-user-select', 'inherit');

If that doesn't work, I would also try:

  $('div.nocopy').removeClass('nocopy');

I have no idea what the 'nocopy' class actually does (in Chrome it seems to do nothing), but it seems like something to try.

Switching to the mobile version s/www/m/ also does the trick

I made a bookmarklet that allows text selection on most websites which prevent it. Please give it a try: https://alanhogan.com/code/text-selection-bookmarklet

One of the more popular Stylish "themes" for the site disallows just the javascript blocking text selection, avoiding the center-aligning.