Victoria loves sour cherries. That detail might sound small, but it explains everything about her. In a team of jokers, snackers, and night owls, she is the one who reaches for the fruit that stings first before it sweetens. She likes the sharpness, the focus, the tang that leaves no room for laziness. If everyone else is swirling in sugar, Victoria is the taste that cuts clean.
A Cherry for Focus
While others hoard chocolate bars or salted sunflower seeds, Victoria keeps her jar of sour cherries nearby. She spoons them out slowly, deliberately. She does not snack — she savors. The fruit is a punctuation mark, a full stop in the day.
“Sweet is for distraction,” she once said, holding a cherry at eye level. “Sour is for focus.”
It has since become an office proverb. Whenever a deadline slips, someone mutters, “You should have eaten a sour cherry.” And they are right. Victoria loves sour cherries not only for taste but for the discipline they symbolize.
Thrillers Above All
Her taste in food mirrors her taste in stories. Victoria loves thrillers. Cold detectives, courtroom battles, mysteries that coil tighter with every chapter — these are her indulgences.
If Argophilia After Hours drifts toward Disney, she will not follow. She will sit back, arms crossed, eyebrows raised, waiting for it to end. She does not melt for sweet songs or bright colors. She wants shadows and suspense.
“I don’t love sugar on the screen any more than I do on the plate,” she once remarked, as Moana chirped away. The room groaned; she remained unmoved.
Victoria loves thrillers because they respect her intelligence. They give her puzzles to solve, and she loves solving.
A Knife for a Pen
On the page, Victoria is no different. She edits like a surgeon. Every sentence is tested: does it serve, or does it waste? If it wastes, it goes. No hesitation, no apology.
Kostas once teased her: “You don’t use a pen, you use a knife.” She did not deny it. Iorgos compared her edits to fish scaled down to the bone. Manuel, ever diplomatic, said she simply brings clarity.
Victoria does not love waste. She loves precision. That is why Argophilia’s drafts are cleaner, sharper, better for her touch.
For all her sharpness, Victoria does have one ritual of sweetness. After a meal of fish, she sometimes pours a small glass of racomelo — not warm, as tradition insists, but on ice, in the middle of summer.
“It’s dessert,” she explains, sipping slowly, ice cubes clicking against glass.
The others tease her, calling her the “drunk of Argophilia,” but everyone knows it is a lie. She does not drink heavily. She loves this small indulgence, and the fact that she loves it makes the teasing funnier. One glass, chilled, after fish — that is all.
When COVID forced Argophilia to leave the Heraklion center and move into MIG’s home, Victoria adapted without fuss. She claimed her desk space, opened her laptop, and worked. While others filled the air with chatter, crochet, or playlists, she kept her rhythm.
But do not mistake her silence for coldness. She watched, she listened, and she often helped. When someone floundered, she leaned over with advice. When deadlines closed in, she typed faster, steadier, without complaint.
She does not love chaos, but she thrives in it by refusing to be pulled under.
Humor Like a Knife’s Edge
Victoria’s humor is as sharp as her editing. It is not constant. It is not sweet. But when it comes, it lands with devastating accuracy.
One evening, Kostas went on about his goat fashion line — camouflage capes, blue and red outfits, a whole runway of bleating models. The room was half-listening until Victoria, without lifting her eyes, said: “The goats are better dressed than you.”
The room exploded in laughter. Kostas turned red. Victoria calmly spooned another sour cherry, as if nothing had happened.
That is her humor: rare, pointed, and unforgettable. She does not love constant jokes, but she loves truth disguised as wit.
Balancing the Team
Every newsroom risks tipping — into ego, into indulgence, into spirals of wasted time. Victoria is the counterweight. She loves balance.
If Manuel gets too dreamy with Shakespeare, she grounds him. If Kostas gets too loud with goats, she cuts him down to size. If MIG gets lost in merengue, Victoria raises an eyebrow that says: “Really?”
Her presence ensures Argophilia never drifts too far from the center.
The truth is, Victoria’s sourness hides care. She loves precision because she loves the work. She loves thrillers because they remind her life is serious and beautiful when examined closely. She loves sour cherries because they taste exactly how she feels: sharp, honest, alive.
In a newsroom full of laughter and chaos, Victoria is the one who shows that seriousness is not the opposite of joy — it is the condition that makes joy possible.
