Rofan ocs based off your pet peeves? Say less. /j (Tell me more, actually)
I can talk a bit about the other transmigrators! They're my friends' ocs, not all of them are active or on tumblr but I'll point you in their direction if you're interested in their guys (and I hope you are because I love them very much). Their original concepts have uh since gotten away from us but here you go:
Hellena ( @demonlikejudgeoffire 's oc) - hated reading about arranged marriages, after transmigrating had multiple failed engagements, including Bastian in a fake relationship scheme to stall until she ran away and built the Lorem Ipsum Guild
Albert "Al" - Japanese guy VERY upset about transmigrating into a white guy, trying so hard to find Fantasy Japan. Platonically married to Hellena (until the divorce but they're chosen soulmates regardless)
Lysander ( @wovenstarlight ) - I... don't actually remember what his pet peeve-based concept was? but he's the one who talks like a ml. Was even a ceo in his past life. Hellena's cousin, they did not know about each other until he barged in on the guild. Terribly in love with Bastian, hates Al's guts
Kuro ( @2nomiya ) - 14yo transmigrated into some sort of magical creature that's supposed to be the fl's plot significant pet, instead found the guild, judged the name, and stuck around. They named themself. Human form is suspected by the noble gossip circle to be Al's bastard child. Likes Bastian, thinks Al is super cool, hates Lysander
Cecil ( @constellatying ) - disliked the "human excel" trope, is now a former computer scientist with specialized knowledge for something that doesn't exist in this world. Guild's quartermaster suffering from gifted child burnout
Caesar Ingeberge "Berge" ( @juruna-yudja ) - studied ancient/dead languages in his past life, now collects magical artifacts and just keeps them in guild storage without telling anyone. Dating Cecil. Also enjoying his new gender in this new life but gender isn't really a huge deal to him in general
Nia ( @brileekiwi ) - full name is Pneumonia so her rofan pet peeve is self-explanatory. Guild mage and hobbyist musician in a band. Currently attends the academy, her bf is very confused about her connections to multiple high ranking nobles
Agnes "Aggie" - 12yo transmigrated into an elderly widow. Having the time of her life. Kuro's bff. The only one who knows what novel they're in (baby's first rofan)
Sending a prompt for Hellena + uhhhh [scrolls through a prompt list] "You're never going to be the same after this" 👀
RUBS HANDS TOGETHER. ok so there were a couple of ideas that immediately came to mind (The Divorce key among them) but this one was very fun
When she first hears them say it (off-hand, as if it were something she should have seen coming) she thinks they're joking. It isn't until her mother looks at her, expecting her to be happy—to be grateful—that she realises no one here is kidding themselves aside from her.
"You can't be serious," she says. Her voice wavers, thin and uncertain. "Bastian?"
"We've all seen the way you look at him, dear," her mother says. "You needn't hide your feelings with us."
"How could you possibly think I have feelings for him? We're friends!"
Her mother tuts disapprovingly. "Don't play coy, Hellena. Earl Kostas' station is far above ours. The fact that His Grace, the Duke, even entertained this suit is incredible enough."
"And Bastian?" Hellena hears herself ask, "He—He also entertained this? He agreed?"
Her father clicks his tongue. "Does that even bear asking, girl? You're not a child anymore, Hellena. You need to act like it. The wedding will be next year, if His Grace permits it."
Her mother leans forward and draws Hellena's hands into her own. Tears have gathered at the corners of her eyes. "My dear girl," she says wistfully. "Your whole life will change once you marry the Earl of Kostas."
Hellena can feel herself trembling, but she won't let herself fall apart here. She can't let them see the despair coiling in her gut. She forces herself to smile, to nod and agree, and asks to be excused. Her parents, exchanging looks of relief, allow her to leave.
Hellena runs away that night.
A deal with a wagoner gets her part of the way out of her father's territory. She sheds her life as the fourth daughter of a provincial baron one sale at a time, trading frills and jewels for much more travel-hardy apparel. Hellena's never been one to stand out in a crowd but by the time she's made it to the capital, her own parents likely wouldn't recognise her. Still, when Bastian bursts through the door of her inn room, he calls her name right away.
"I got your letter," he says, "I came as soon as I could."
Hellena's holding a dagger, has been since she'd heard him coming up the stairs. She doesn't drop it, even though she knows it's practically useless against him. It's a warning to stay back, and one that he heeds.
"Did you know?" she demands.
Bastian doesn't even give her the courtesy of blinking. "I didn't."
He sounds tired, but then, he always does nowadays. She doesn't let herself soften.
"Did you know?"
"I swear. I didn't know. I wouldn't have let them—"
She feels a laugh rip itself from her throat. "Don't lie to me. We both know you would."
Now, Bastian steps closer. "On my life. Hellena, I would not do this to you."
The blade clatters to the ground. She presses her hands to her head.
"Okay," she begins. Takes one ragged breath then another. Drops her hands. Tries again. "Okay. What do I do, Bas? I can't go back there."
"Then don't. Get as far away from here as you can. I brought some cash with me. Once you find someplace you think is safe, write to me again and I'll arrange for more funds to be sent."
"I'm not living off you."
"You know it's fine—"
"It's not."
"I'm trying to help you," Bastian says, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Just let me do that, Hellena."
Hellena lifts her chin. "Don't patronise me, Bas. I've had enough of that already."
He opens his mouth to interject, but she barrels on.
"Whatever you give me, I'll repay. On fair terms to you, even. I'll set up shop, do… I don't know, some kind of merchant business."
"With what contacts?"
"That's for me to figure out."
"And if you fail?"
"Then we reassess at a set date. But I won't fail. Bastian, you and I both know that I'm not some spoiled eighteen year-old brat venturing out into the world for the first time. I can do this."
He looks at her then. Really, truly looks at her, one transmigrator to another. Sighs.
"Your cousin's going to kill me if he finds out I helped you do this," he mutters.
"But he won't find out, right Bas?"
His shoulders slump. "I won't tell anyone I saw you," he swears.
"Good, 'cause I'll kill you if you do," she promises sweetly. "If I have to get married to you, because of you, I will literally murder you in your sleep. Now, I've got this idea about a guild…"
If anyone had asked Hellena, she would have told them that it's not like she personally went out of her way to piss off some of the most powerful people in Fantasy Japan.
The journey from the port in Hansburg to Akitsushima had taken several months, and as the days had turned to weeks, then dragged on even longer, the spite roiling in Hellena's stomach had burned itself away. By the time they'd docked at Yesso, Hellena had been tired and heartsick enough that she'd thought perhaps she would never return to Stalia (a place she had and would refuse to call home for many more years to come). So, certainly, she hadn't set out to make enemies.
She imposes herself upon Akitsushima. The traders at the port are familiar with her crew, used to outsiders and all too happy to take their coin. The further inland she goes, the more she draws attention; a single white woman accompanied only by her translator is a strange sight, even in this world that has some of the sharpest edges of reality sanded away.
She'd always thought she'd make this trip with Al, but now she wonders if he would have been even more miserable after realising how different he had become. With his pale blond hair, his eyes, his height—would the stares he'd undoubtedly attract only serve as a terrible reminder that he could never again be Yuuya? The thought makes her quietly sad and then angry, and it makes it her reckless. She drives harder bargains than she might've, otherwise, and isn't until after she's stepped on toes by securing suppliers she didn't know not to touch that she realises she'd fucked up somewhere along the way.
Shō is one of several assassins to come after her, but he's the only one who tries to seduce her first. She lets him into her bed out of curiousity, wondering if he'll slit her throat while she sleeps, then is bemused to wake the next morning and the next. By the time she eventually gets around to asking if he's still planning on killing her, she believes him when he swears he won't, even after she tells him she won't haunt him if he does. She'd prefer to haunt Al, honestly, to keep him company the way they'd promised each other when they'd married, and Shō laughs when she says this. He understands, in a way no one else ever has, and when he finally meets Al, she thinks he gets it.
Al gets Shō, too, even when no one else does. She could cry for it, for the lack of judgment in this when every other person thinks the worst of her for it, thinks the worst of Al when it's not his fault, when she's the one that's always wanted something he couldn't give. It's not Al's fault there's a hole inside Hellena that's been there ever since she was Vivienne. It's not Bastian's fault either, or even Lysander's, and she has to drag those words out from inside her before she can explain why there's nothing in her that remembers what forgiveness feels like. It's no one's fault but Hellena's that everything came crashing down all at once, that the hunger inside her spilled out and she destroyed everything good she created. She'd thought they were just as ugly as her and dragged them all down with her.
The kids had never deserved this. Cecil shouldn't have had to step in when she ran away. Nia should be in school. Fuck, Al should have been left a hero, instead of his name being dragged through the mud because of her. Hellena could have left it well alone. Should have let them believe that they'd all been brought in isolation.
Shō laughs when she tells him this, too. He didn't ask and yet she finds the words spilling from her lips. At first, hesitantly, like the curve of her hands around his, then more assuredly, in the dark where she can't see his face, murmured into the spaces between their bodies. She finds herself telling him more than she'd ever planned, more than she's told anyone except Al or Bastian. The nature of Hellena's relationships has always been like this—all-encompassing and obsessive. She hands herself over to the people she shouldn't love at the barest sign that they might reciprocate, if only so that other more dangerous confessions don't spill out of her treacherous mouth.
He tells her she's overthinking things. He tells her that he loves her, even when he doesn't, and it's a nice enough fiction that she closes her eyes to it. He tells her she can't blame herself for the choices other people make. She knows that he gives up everything when he sails to Stalia with her but can't stomach the thought of telling him to stay.
Shō's voice is dry when he says that she couldn't make a cat do a single thing it didn't want to.
Bastian checks on Hellena first, because everything else can wait until he makes certain that she's safe and secure. She doesn't accept his money freely, not that he really expected her to although he hoped she would, but he's glad that she accepted at least some assistance. And that she was willing to hear him out, even if she had pointed a dagger at him first. He gets it.
Then he heads back to the mansion and says before the butler can greet him, "My father is still in his office, yes?"
"Yes, my lord," says the butler with a quizzical lilt in his voice, which Bastian chooses not to address. He doesn't linger for a moment longer and briskly makes his way to the Duke's office.
He doesn't knock, letting himself in without ceremony, and the Duke lifts his head in annoyance which shifts into confusion at the sight of him. Bastian's not sure what expression he's wearing but it doesn't feel like a good one.
"Father," says Bastian, "when were you planning on telling me you had begun marriage negotiations for me?"
The Duke blinks. "Ah, that. I'm sorry to disappoint but it seems Miss Castro has disappeared in the night."
"I am aware, Father. That's not what I asked."
"So it wasn't." Finally he sets down his pen, giving him his full attention. If he suspects that Bastian knows where Hellena has gone, he doesn't let it show. "Negotiations had only just begun. I planned to inform you once a date was set for a formal meeting. I thought you would pleased. You have a close relationship, do you not?"
Bastian bites on an empty laugh. The last time he had been truly upset with his father, he was a child and had just begun cultivating a garden in honor of the family he lost. He practically threw a tantrum when he saw a stranger walking among his flowers.
This is worse. This isn't a matter of his own selfish possession; this is his friend's life.
"Miss Castro is my friend, whom I would never wish to marry and who would never wish to marry me." She is his dearest friend. He would do it, if she asked, if it would help; but it would not help, and she would not ask, and they would both be happier for it. Hellena will be happier. He's frightened for her situation but she's always been stronger than him, and far more shrewd. Her idea is a good one, too. Even if circumstances hadn't forced this, he would have been happy to lend his support.
Guildmaster would suit her better than nobility ever did. If only it hadn't come about like this.
"In light of this... misunderstanding," Bastian continues icily, "I would like to humbly request that all marriage prospects come directly to me from now on."
The Duke dips his head, almost infuriatingly calm. Rather than angry, he seems vaguely curious, likely because Bastian has never spoken to him in this way before. But just like the day with the garden, all he says is, "Very well."
Bastian places a hand over his chest and bows respectfully to his father. "Thank you. I will, of course, keep the dignity of House Kostas in mind." As he must always, in every decision he makes.
"I trust you will. Is there anything else, Bastian?"
"That is all. I shall take my leave." The Duke nods and picks up his pen, and Bastian turns for the door. Before making his exit, he pauses, adds, "Never interfere in my personal relationships again. Father." And he closes the door between them.
I just read your OC collection on ao3 with no knowledge of your oc beforehand, so of course I followed it up with following your tumblr and reading your whole OC: bastian tag. I have so many questions about the romfan OC universe now!
Why does Lysander put Bastian on a pedestal? What happened there?
Is Lysander the cousin in @demonlikejudgeoffire’s piece that would be angry at Bastian for helping Hellena run away? You mentioned Bastian and Hellena don’t know Lysander is a transmigrator until he shows up at the guild, so how are they close like that when Hellena still thinks of others as just characters until her assassin catboytoy changes things?
What is up with Al and why did he 1. start disliking Bastian and 2. hide that from Bastian and 3. say no to leaving with Hellena when one of his biggest goals is finding/getting to Fantasy Japan?
Also how did the time loop even happen? Is there a System, or some god of fate thing, or did one of the magical artifacts most of the guild members don’t know about malfunction?
Is Aggie going to get a new body, or will she just get a human form of her sword body the way it sounds Kuro as a magical creature has gained a human form as well?
If the plot is stolen, does that mean a book series is written in the transmigrator’s original world about them? Or does it just mean they’ve derailed the romfan universe to such an extant that the romance Aggie knows of is never realized?
Anyway, this is a super near idea! Thanks for putting your posts on ao3 where I could find them <3
Oh these are some fun questions. Thank you for getting interested in our little guys!! Some of these questions are better answered by my friends who of course know more about their guys than I do so I tossed the mic to them for some of these. This is gonna be LONG so all the answers are under the cut:
"Why does Lysander put Bastian on a pedestal"
Devi (@wovenstarlight): all the Lysander questions can be answered with He's Stupid hshfjskvfkgk
Devi: lys has a bad habit in his new post-transmigration life of making snap judgements about people and then sticking with them well past a reasonable point, so with bastian lys is still using his childhood perception of "this is a really really cool guy who's a lot better than me (in all the ways I think matter) and so he can basically do no wrong", with all the childish exaggeration that entails. when bastian has his big freakout during the divorce era/yellow wallpapering lys is like Oh jeez okay I've been too. I've probably been weird about him huh. I gotta pull myself together. it takes a little while longer and also a head injury'd hellena yelling at him for him to actually do that though lol
"Is Lysander the cousin"
Devi: yes he's hellena's cousin. they're not close at all—lys thinks they're closer than they are but even he believes them to be fairly distanced. as children they… I don't want to say Got Along because that implies more closeness than they had, but Tolerated Each Other implies dislike and there wasn't really any of that either. they sort of just existed around each other??? I dunno lys(adult pre-tmg) was kind of scared of fucking up children irreparably so when he was around with his (perceived)kid cousin he mostly just politely ignored her because if you Don't Engage With Something At All you can't do it damage!!! but he knew enough about her to assume she was happy with her life and family. and then kept thinking that, even when the engagement to bastian was brought up, because see above re: he Does Not Stop Believing stuff until given a big slap of undeniable evidence to the face. he was initially mad about hellena running away on the eve of her engagement to bastian because he knew both of them, knew they were good people, and thought they wanted the engagement; he's not mad At Them initially, he's actually mad at Al who he sees as the homewrecker who. ok please know he would not use this word for it but it's easy shorthand for me. who seduced hellena away from a happy life (HE DOESNT KNOW AT THAT POINT NEITHER OF THEM WANTED IT!!!) then he runs to find bastian and hellena and be like GUYS!!! WHAT!!! and finds out they're happier without the engagement and goes Oh ok. however he still hates al because [lys voice] al is eminently hateable
Opal (@demonlikejudgeoffire): They aren't [close]
"What is up with Al"
Everyone in the server, immediately: what isn't up with al
Yohan: Even I, his creator, Have No Idea
Yohan: first of all al doesn't. hate bastian. he thinks he THINKS he hates bastian. i think he spent so long being so angry and then the war compounded that that despite actually having admired bastian from afar at school when they do reunite bastian is just a living reminder of all the worst parts of himself
Yohan: so the better answer is Al Hates Himself
Yohan: alsooo why does he hide that from bastian? he’s cognizant enough to understand that it’s completely unfair for him to dislike bastian for what is feasibly a nonissue…. and he knows that the people he care for care about bastian
Yohan: the reason why he doesn’t go with hellena is because. Hellena. he cares about her immensely but not enough to choose her. Which is ultimately what the entire trip or choice is about
"the time loop"
That's just an au. There's no explanation because "canonically" that did not actually happen. There's no system in this world so maybe it was magic, maybe it was the gods, but I wasn't really thinking about why, it was just the prompt I was given and I enjoy making Bastian suffer.
"Is Aggie going to get a new body"
She does get a new body! Brand new, sword's gone forever, Al has to get a new one, although it would be really funny if they ended up doing some soul eater shit... And yes, Kuro also gets a human body! They actually have the human body before the divorce as they explored their magical creature abilities, and they can switch at will.
"the plot"
Oh, no, the og romance is still going, it's just that the og protags were also supposed to save the world and they ended up doing that instead. On accident. But everything else is going as they were written but that's all background stuff bc none of our rofan guys are getting involved in that. And the only story being written about them in another world is the one that exists in me and my friends' heads.
Hellena regrets it as soon as the words come out of her mouth. She doesn't actually mean it. She'd just asked him to leave with her, surely he understands that now, more than ever, she needs him to be with her. Forget everyone else, she needs him.
But Al just wears the same expression he always does, inscrutable and unmoved in the face of her emotion.
"Alright," he says, scratching the back of his head. "Why don't we get divorced?"
She still has the contract, of course. She keeps every single piece of paper she's ever signed—both on and off guild business—but this one in particular couldn't be seen by anyone else. They sit in her office. The contracts lie between them.
"We don't need to do this," Al tells her, brow furrowed. "We're just going to do what we agreed on to begin with."
"Read it again," Hellena says flatly. "You agreed to do this."
"Oh. Huh, so that was in there too?" He laughs a little as he says it.
Hellena's fingers clench by her side and she forces them to flatten. This is Al. Him saying that doesn't mean he forgot. He wouldn't. He's trying to get her to smile, the way he always so easily does. She can't be angry at him for that.
(She is.)
"Start at line 2," she says, instead.
"Hellena," Al begins.
She doesn't want to hear whatever is going to come out of his mouth next. "Start at line 2."
In the end, they go through every single line of their agreement. Al wasn't incorrect—they both knew what they'd agreed to, when they first got into this—but Hellena knows how he is. It's for his benefit, not hers, that she insists. He tries multiple times to tell her that he'll give her some property or another, objecting each time she shuts him down that 'they'd agreed on half'.
Hellena steamrolls right past him. He settles down by the time they're onto the third page, lips pressed in a mulish frown. Finally, when they've finished signing off on everything, Al shifts in his seat a little.
"What," she asks flatly.
"It's just..." His frown deepens. "Uh. Are you mad at me?"
She doesn't let herself react. "Why would I be mad at you?"
Al looks at her, eyes searching her face like he's trying to find the smallest sign of weakness. Brittle as she feels, Hellena's confident in her poker face. She stands and neatens her skirt.
"Thank you for your time, Earl ◾️◾️◾️. Please see yourself out."
He flinches when she uses his last name. She knew he would. That was the point, and yet she regrets it later, when she's alone in the berth she'd booked. The ship is alive with activity outside, but her cramped cabin feels almost vast with emptiness. She'd always thought that she'd make this trip with Al—it's not like she has any attachment to Japan—and yet, here she is solo travelling to the RoFan version of it. She wonders how much it'll be like the real thing. The main characters had never been there, and there had only been a few references to the "Eastern Continent" from what she could recall. Would it be just some generic "ye olde Asia"? Would it be drawn from some magical stock image template bank? Or, once she got past a certain point, would it just be an empty, blank void?
No one in the guild had any idea how this whole thing worked, but it always seemed like Hellena was the only one who remembered that this world was inside a novel.
Well. No. Now she knew that for certain.
The remembrance of that particular conversation brings with it a taste of bitterness and the low, furious burn that lingers in her gut. Fuck Bastian, and Lysander too. If she ever sees either of them again, she's not responsible for what she does to them.
As if summoned by the thought, there's a rap on her door.
"You've got to be kidding me," she hisses through her teeth. "Again?"
When she yanks the door open, the envelope is thrust towards her without even a greeting.
"Thanks," Hellena says wearily.
"Came in with the resupply, so it got here even faster than we did," the sailor says, looking vaguely impressed. "You've got one determined cousin, miss."
"He's something all right," Hellena replies, forcing a smile. It fades as soon as the door closes, and she tosses the envelope into the fireplace.
If nothing else, at least Lysander's letters are good for kindling.
hi! idk if anyone has asked yet but i would love to learn more about the divorce arc!
You're actually the first person to ask and I would LOVE to talk about divorce arc. But uh so I started writing it all out and it got Very long so instead I'm just gonna heavily paraphrase and if you'd like to know more about anything, feel free to send me another ask! Or ask my friends! They know their own characters better than I do.
Tl;dr sometimes when you put a bunch of repressed traumatized people in a guild with one (1) guy who did go to therapy it doesn't go well (this is a joke but also not really)
Hellena attempts to comfort Bastian about his family by saying they're not really "real" anyway, leading to the discovery that she views everyone other than the other tmgers as "characters"
Bastian and Lysander attempt to talk about it with her but she shuts them down and, now on the defense, decides to leave the guild
Hellena asks Al to come with her but Al hesitates; they get divorced
tension with the remaining members of the guild is high and everyone discovers that their relationships w each other are a lot worse than they thought
Cecil takes over guild operations; Nia helps out sometimes but mostly sticks to the academy to avoid the uncomfortable situation
Lysander stresses himself out trying to fix things so Bastian forces him to take a vacation; Bastian also needs the space from Lysander's worship of him
Hellena goes to Fantasy Japan
Al takes the kids Kuro and Aggie on a Life-Changing Field Trip to find the one piece
Bastian has a mental breakdown and gets yellow wallpaper'ed (by charlotte perkins gilman) (i have not actually read the short story but my friends say that is definitely what happens); his family does not make any of this public
Hellena gets assassins sent after her in Fantasy Japan but one of the assassins becomes her catboytoy, which leads to her starting to view the "characters" of this world as people after all
Al, Kuro, and Aggie become pirates with Aggie becoming the captain; they are now criminals wanted by the empire
Lysander and Berge go to their respective homes and have emotional talks with their families which help them process their own feelings and the current situation with the guild
due to her elderly body, Aggie starts dying so Kuro and Al's brilliant solution is to fake her death and stick her ghost in Al's magic sword until they get her a new body
Aggie's "death" leads to everyone coming back together in various ways
the novel's plot has accidentally been stolen in the process
This is a VERY rough summary of events, I left out a lot and probably forgot even more. Please send me or my friends more asks if there's anything in particular you would like elaborated on! It is. a lot. as you can tell
