The story of Seyfert galaxy RE J2248-511: from intriguingly ultrasoft to unremarkably average

RE J2248-511 is one of only 14 non-blazar AGN detected in the far ultraviolet by the ROSAT Wide Field Camera implying a large ultrasoft X-ray flux. This soft X-ray excess is strongly variable on year timescales, a common property of Narrow Line Seyfert 1s, yet its optical linewidths classify this source as a broad-lined Seyfert 1. We use four nearly simultaneous optical--X-ray SEDs spanning 7 years to study the spectral shape and long term variability of RE J2248-511. Here we show that the continuum SED for the brightest epoch dataset is consistent with the mean SED of a standard quasar, and matches well to that from an XMM-SDSS sample of AGN with <M/M_Sun> ~ 10^8 and <L/L_Edd> ~ 0.2. All the correlated optical and soft X-ray variability can be due entirely to a major absorption event. The only remarkable aspect of this AGN is that there is no measurable intrinsic X-ray absorption column in the brightest epoch dataset. The observed FUV flux is determined by the combination of this and the fact that the source lies within a local absorption `hole'. RE J2248-511, whose variable, ultrasoft X-ray flux once challenged its BLS1 classification, demonstrates that characterisation of such objects requires multi-epoch, multi-wavelength campaigns.