#jonathan grey

In reality it's actually a bit complicated past that because of a few things.

Biggest thing: @nightingaletrash and I both have our own separate continuities. For the most part, 95% of what we talk about happens in both, but I essentially have a copy pasted version of Sullivan running around in her head, and she has one of her lot running around in mine.

The biggest differences in our separate universes are these:

In @nightingaletrash's continuity, Evie was the canon VTMB fledgling and Amicia was the canon VTMNR courier.

In Maddyverse (my continuity), Madeline (thus the name) was the canon VTMB fledgling, and my canon VTMNR courier was someone entirely separate called Elisa Mulgrew, my Gangrel, who is Lettow Kaminsky's childe.

So because of that there's minor differences in backstories. For example, I can't quite remember what Evie's backstory is in Maddyverse, where she's not the Fledgling (I have it somewhere!), but obviously she didn't have to deal with all the bullshit the Fledgling did so while she's still independent she's probably less anti-Sect than she is in @nightingaletrash's continuity. And in @nightingaletrash's continuity, Amicia was the canon VTMNR courier, so in her universe Amicia would've had more money sooner and therefore would've met Prince Cross and become influential over there a lot faster than she would have in Maddyverse.

We don't actually talk about the differences much, we just talk about what each universe has in common and if I've had to I just slightly adapt it in my head to fit Maddyverse, and I've always assumed she did the same thing for hers. I've never asked her her explicit thoughts on it but the way I see it, her version of Sullivan is just a duplicate copy that she can do whatever she wants to because my Sullivan is over here in my head, hers is an AU version of mine. She can do whatever she wants to her version of Sullivan because it doesn't have any effect on my (Maddy)version of Sullivan.

I don't do whatever I want with Kara or Amicia though because we've never actually explicitly discussed this and I don't want to be disrespectful of her ownership of her characters, as I know my interpretation is pretty laissez-faire compared to how most people feel about other people playing with their OCs. In any case, both universes have so much in common it's never had to come up, because they're all Millicent's childer, Amicia always ends up in Seattle, Sullivan always ends up working for Amicia -- the only thing that really changes between our heads is when it happens and what Amicia was up to and what Evie's backstory is.

(Am dying to know what Elisa'd probably be up to in her universe, though -- she'd have never diablerised Aila, and presumably wasn't able to come back to Tucson in 2019 because Lettow explicitly requested her as courier just so he could have his estranged childe close by to keep an eye on her. If Elisa was working in Tucson at the time, she'd have been given all the assignments, not Amicia, so there's no universe where Amicia is the VTMNR courier where Elisa could have been present. And given the Tucson court went tits up in @nightingaletrash's universe when Amicia betrayed them to the SI, either Lettow was destroyed before he could ever be reconciled with Elisa, or he went on the Beckoning before they were ever reunited. Which makes me really sad to think about because Elisa was struggling, and VTMNR was when the hardest part of her life as a vampire was finally put behind her. SO THAT GIVES ME THE SADS. Damn, now I've got a plotbunny biting...)

But if we look at their Doylian backstory it gets even more complicated lmao.

Because like. as a character. Sullivan actually started off as an AU version of another character.

(and feel free to tune out at this point because I realise this actually has nothing to do with your actual question of his IN-UNIVERSE backstory, AT ALL, lmao, sorry, it's more his out-of-universe backstory)

So. Maddyverse is Maddyverse because the fledgling is Madeline Jones, my first ever vampire OC. She had an identical twin sister called Meredith. Meredith went on to marry a Welsh trans man named Jonathan Grey and opened a pharmacy in Seattle. Here's a picture I made of him with Artbreeder before everyone realised how fucked up using AI was:

Meredith was walking home in December 2019 when she got involved in the mass Embrace. She is my canonical VTMB2 main character, although that may change by the time it finally fucking comes out.

I played with Jonathan a bit. I decided after Meredith's disappearance he closed their pharmacy and moved back to the UK, taking their twin daughters with him.

As he was a pharmacist, eventually he got the attention of a Brujah who wanted drugs, and was ghouled. Yeah, Jonathan had a fucking meth lab. He absolutely hated being a ghoul and as he got older and didn't age, he was forced to distance himself from his daughters and basically be a disaster father figure to protect them and also himself.

His Brujah domitor had a Lasombra enemy, who, while fucking with the Brujah, noticed that her ghoul seemed to be pretty resilient to her fuckery. Jonathan was pumped full of Brujah blood, so had a huge "FUCK YOU" streak. Lasombra got distracted trying to fuck with Jonathan and eventually tried to Embrace him.

It took her four attempts, that's how fucking stubborn and how much a fighter Jonathan was. But she managed it. Ended up being a bad idea, though: the first thing Jonathan did when he woke up from his Embrace was stake her ass and leave her out for the sun. And then go back to running his pharmacy.

Problem with this backstory is... Meredith was Embraced in 2019. With the amount of time that passed, by the time Jonathan was finally Embraced we're looking at it being after 2050 in the timeline. So I adored Jonathan and was itching to play him, but I'd never be able to in a modern game because he's too far ahead in the timeline.

But I wanted to play him in VTMNR. I wanted to play him badly. So I tweaked a few things -- he still has the wife that went missing, still has twin daughters, still trans, still Lasombra... but he was Embraced in 1994 instead. He doesn't become as bitter and hateful towards Kindred because he didn't spend thirty or so years as a ghoul, and he had his sisters show up shortly after his Embrace, so he never lost that goofy part of his personality (even if there's very few people who are aware of it).

Given their near-identical appearances, Sullivan is now Jonathan's biological uncle who went missing when Jonathan was very young, almost too young to remember him. The two of them later would meet, towards the end of the 21st century, in Seattle, and Sullivan would attempt to take Jonathan under his wing, but by then Jonathan utterly despised every Kindred he'd ever meet and barely tolerated him. While I haven't decided for certain Jonathan will probably, at some point, be destroyed at Sullivan's hands for Embracing a powerful-ass vampire hunter and siccing him on the vampire populace of Seattle. Even as a Lasombra, given that he was Embraced as a Brujah ghoul, he still has a lot of Brujah traits -- and I don't see Jonathan ever fully toeing the line as a Cainite.

Jonathan might get away alive. Ultimately, he's still got that Brujah in him, and Sullivan doesn't like to physically fight unless he really has to so has few physical skills. But if Prince Cross, his beloved sister's lover, tells him to put him down, then he intends to finish the job. They might end up chasing each other all across the US for decades, who knows... depends if I want Jonathan to live or not I guess, or if I want to keep playing with a story that's nearly a hundred years away and will probably never get to write out (how many VTM fanfics take place in the far future like that?).