Cheyenne Howell

Cheyenne Clarisse Howell is a journalist and columnist for the Washington Post whose MO appears to be the ruthless unveiling of uncomfortable truths about the world. She has a particular love for taking down authority figures who shirk responsibility whilst benefitting from the perks of leadership. This said, she’s a dedicated human rights activist and an author and she is genuinely and wholeheartedly invested in her family and friends.

Cheyenne Howell is portrayed by actress Emily Deschanel.

Personality
Cheyenne is a deeply invested woman, her heart and mind never committed to anything if not completely and with her own brand of quiet enthusiasm. She is passionate, dedicated and responsible, which her father sometimes comments is the best possible combination of his and her mother’s traits. She feels things very keenly and strives always to connect herself as much as possible with every circumstance so that she might fully understand it and perceive it. This manifests itself in her love for others, particularly her family, which is the thing she values most in her life, her refusal to give up and her sincere responsibility to those who share the planet with her through a passionate dedication to her work

Justice and honest humanity make Chey tick and she absolutely loves to unveil the masks that people hide behind, whether through the gentle and genuine love she has for friends and family, or through the unforgiving war she wages on those in the game of selfish deception. There is nothing she hates more than a career-ambitious politician who shakes responsibility for perks. With Chey, what you see is what you get and she will have no trouble telling you exactly what she thinks of you if you happen to incur her wrath. She has been known to get a little heated and the biting commentary within her Washington Post column has oftentimes earned her an enemy or two. Furthermore, thanks to her time as a foreign correspondent, she is dedicated to the fight for human rights and justice on a humanitarian level and she will push for what she believes is right unapologetically.

This is also an excellent showcase for her somewhat stubborn nature, her dedication, as is often the case with strengths, is also a terrible weakness. She is driven towards particular ends in a way that make her somewhat a workaholic and unable to let go of situations when they become dangerous to herself or even when her assistance is no longer welcome. She has had some experiences because of this that have left others worried for her, or even hostile towards what has been seen as meddling, though she herself seems oblivious to it.

Her family is her first priority and she has served as a somewhat motherly figure towards all of her younger siblings. This has manifested particularly in her relationship with her sister Juno, who she would gladly put her life on the line for, despite the younger girl’s discomfort with her family more broadly. Chey is particularly dedicated to seeing Juno reconcile with her twin, Paris, who Chey encouraged daily to build a better relationship before Juno went missing.

In the end, she longs for people who genuinely care for each other and say so and she does her best to lead by example. She is always the first in the family to suggest family get-togethers and certainly the first to encourage them all to step beyond the issues that have fractured them of late. She is the same in her friendships, encouraging others to be honest with themselves and those that share their lives.

With Juno Howell
Juno is Chey's younger sister and whilst Juno is on rough terms with most of her family, Chey makes more of an effort than the others to reach out to her. Juno has recently been discovered in a coma and Chey is determined to know what has happened to her sister.

History
Cheyenne Clarisse Howell was born into relative comfort in Marseille, France, her father, Norman Howell, serving as a Diplomat to the American Consulate and her mother, Emilie Howell, a French socialite who had fallen in love with Norman, despite his being eight years her senior, and married him after only six months of being together. Her early childhood was uneventful, filled with the usual adoration of being the first child, coupled with the absolute villainy of being suddenly accompanied by a younger brother, Jericho. While this was more than enough for Chey, less giving in her youngest years, the couple were also later to give birth to twins when Chey was six. It was with this that everything within her changed. On the arrival of Juno and Paris, Chey seemed to perceive that mantle of older sisterhood that invariably descends from some unnamed location and became their absolute defender in all things. She often assigned herself to help out her mother, though her presence was not always as helpful as she imagined and she casually grew to feel that affinity with others that would define her later life. At age nine, this was to be cemented further by the family’s relocation to America after Norman Howell was reassigned and Emilie uprooted to follow him to Washington D.C. Quite determined to be the adult amongst her siblings in this very big move, Chey immediately took on the role of mothering them whenever there was no supervising adult available. She took responsibility for the well-being of her siblings and never let the feeling fade as she grew older, often being more pushy about things like homework and bedtimes than even her mother. During this period, Emilie strove hard to keep her family rooted in their French heritage and taught her children everything she thought they ought to know about culture, language and life to remain true to being both French and American. Chey took to it extremely well, the value instilled not only a distinct love for her home, but also a growing curiosity about the many vibrant people that existed in the world at large. She grew fascinated about the intricacies of people and life and began to develop a wider sense of kinship for humanity. Simultaneously, Chey developed a keen relationship with her mother and the two remain close, despite her early schooling and the hiring of a nanny to aid in raising she and her siblings.

At school Chey was sociable and took well to others, building a strong base of friends thanks to her genuine care and interest in others. She excelled particularly in English studies, her passion for language growing out of her early French lessons and extending into a flair for expression. She loved to write and scribbled stories in her notebooks whenever she had a moment. Eventually, Juno and Paris joined Chey at school and it was then that Chey really started to note the fracturing relationship between the two, competition from childhood growing to be a little more intentional and, to Chey’s mind, rooted in envy. Juno particularly fought hard to distinguish herself and Paris took every advantage to make her twin feel small. Chey intervened early on, mothering the pair and attempting to influence them for the better. She met with limited success, but this would prove to be meaningless to her as she developed her stubborn and tenacious side. When she was sixteen, Chey experienced something that would profoundly change her life. A presentation from a local human rights group, presented to her American History class, cast a little darkness over her view of the world as they uncovered the truth behind many of the conflicts that raged across the world and impacted the lives of millions of innocents. It was the beginning of an awakening as Chey began to lose some of her endearing naïveté and develop a more realist approach to her world, beginning to fundraise for the activists she had met and putting her words to use in the school newspaper. A bright student thus far, she quickly developed a passion and worked hard, finally becoming the editor of the paper and a top scholar on graduation. This process was not all ease, however, and it cost Chey a few friends, who were not quite so invested in her struggle, developing her more demanding approach to people. She was interested in meeting people of substance and allowing others to see that within themselves and, consequently, began to develop a somewhat unusual friend-making technique by creating relationships based on her honest opinion. It worked about half the time, but developed a more confident Chey who had a few dedicated friends amongst her friendship group and a growing detachment from the need to please people. <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;font-family:"Courier New";mso-bidi-font-family:Tahoma;color:#3E3E3E">After High School, Chey went on to graduate Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Communication from George Washington University, earning her way through it by freelancing for local human rights publications and writing for the University paper as well. While most of her colleagues went on to pursue careers in government, Chey immediately tackled her dream of becoming an investigative journalist and foreign correspondent, working her way up several low-key newspapers and many, many articles on cat fashion shows. <p style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none; text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;font-family:"Courier New";mso-bidi-font-family:Tahoma;color:#3E3E3E">At the same time, she continued to keep an eye on her family as Juno began to take her own path and started to separate herself from the rest. Unhappy with this and believing that the family’s attitude was largely to blame, Chey advocated for a change. The attempt from the others was luke-warm at best, something that disappointed Chey a great deal, and she responded by pushing them more and more together. It was met with varying responses, Juno showing less inclination to fight for it and Paris flippant as ever. Finally, this fracture came to fruition when her brother Jericho was disowned by her parents for deviant behaviour. Chey grieved, her family usually the centre-point for her confidence and strove all the more to pull it all together, often giving more of herself than was strictly healthy or even desired by the rest. She perseveres in this still. <p style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none; text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;font-family:"Courier New";mso-bidi-font-family:Tahoma;color:#3E3E3E">Finally, at twenty three, she landed a job at the Washington Post, covering minor political news, a position that would finally lead to her dream job at twenty six of working as their Foreign Correspondent in such locations as Iraq, South-East Asia and even the Sudan. Her experiences only strengthened her resolve and she gradually became more and more prevalent as an advocate for human rights. Her musing within articles about the injustices of many of the world’s systems led to her editor assigning her a column entitled, The Rinse Cycle, in which Chey systematically went about washing the mouths out of several high-profile politicians, earning herself a reputation as a ruthless truth-teller and a voice of many in the Capital. <p style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none; text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;font-family:"Courier New";mso-bidi-font-family:Tahoma;color:#3E3E3E">For three years now, she has continued in this, her column well-read and her questions well-feared at press conferences. She has also just published her first fictitious novel as well, her passion for story-telling unceasing. While it has been warmly received by critics, it has yet to pick up with American readers more broadly. Currently, she has been reassigned as Political Correspondent to the White House and continues to advocate for responsible government and more socially responsible policies. Of course, this has been sidelined somewhat by the sudden disappearance and then reappearance of Juno in a Washington hospitable, comatose and leaving Chey determined to figure out just what has led her sister to this place, what has only been a moral distaste for the phenomenon of shared dreaming about to become a much more directed crusade.

Skills
Writing – Chey knows how to churn out a good story as a reporter and political columnist for the Washington Post. She also writes fiction and is very well read.

Languages – having done time as a foreign correspondent, Chey has picked up snatches of Arabic as well as being fluent in her mother’s native French.

Interviewing – Chey is very good at finding out what she needs to know.

Emergency Response – with training in first aid and experience in the field, Chey has learned to keep a cool head in an emergency and is definitely reliable in one.