Alexa brought her A-game to her new job every morning. It felt just as dead-end as her old job at times, but she kept up the faith. She kept up her personal blog in the meantime, and spent her free time looking for stories.
She found some, too; she’d overhear people talking at work, or she’d go out herself to hunt down a scoop. She spent hours researching, fact-checking, phoning witnesses and experts. Her articles were all well-written, polished, well-researched, and professional. But she was a nobody and nobody knew about her blog. She felt like a tree, falling in a forest with nobody around to hear her hit the ground.
After six months, she heard about a vacancy at one of the news desks upstairs. She submitted a few of her articles to her boss, and while she didn’t get the job she wanted, she was promoted to copy writer. Not the most glamorous position, but it was a step above filing papers, answering phones, and data entry.
Life went on. Alexa got really busy, once again eschewing anything that wasn’t helping her get where she wanted to go; she ate, drank, and breathed journalism. She even got to assist the actual reporters from time to time (as an unpaid, volunteer PA essentially), where she continued to take notes and grow.
She bought a moped at one point. She loved it; it was cute and convenient and cheap to maintain—until one day it broke down and just stopped working. Her boyfriend at the name, a cameraman for the Lumiose Press named Phil, brought it back to her flat and tried to fix it, but he might have made it worse?
Either way, it’s just been sitting there in her parking spot, covered by a tarp, for a couple years now.
Her sister was becoming a real wild child, partying and drinking and doing who knows what else. Alexa tried to talk some sense into her, but Viola had become her own person. She was rebelling and living her own life, and while Alexa worried about her, there wasn’t much she could do beside offer to be there for Viola if ever she needed it.
Viola left with her friend Grant when he went on a Pokemon journey in 2016, and she was gone for most of the next two or three years. She would return sometimes, usually for only a few days to develop and sell photos. She’d crash on Alexa’s couch whenever she came by.
During this time, at one point, Alexa was working on an article for her blog, and she was so in the zone that she didn’t notice that something Viola was cooking had caught fire.
In 2018, Alexa met with Viola during a visit to town. She complained that Cynthia—her former roommate—had just up and moved out a few weeks before, leaving Alexa high and dry with the entire rent for the month.
Viola asked how much the rent was, and after a bit of discussion, they decided to move in together. Of course, Viola wasn’t going to be a permanent resident. Viola has only been to the apartment four or five times since she moved in—which has been fine with Alexa, who likes the space and the privacy—though Viola still pays her half of the rent every month.
The longer she worked at the Lumiose Press, the more frustrated she became. Her boss and the other reporters only ever treated her like a kid, dismissing her ideas at best and all-but stealing them at worst.
She hated how the editor-in-chief tended to cow to corporate interests. He was a good journalist once, and he was popular; his leadership had saved the Lumiose Press from bankruptcy almost a decade before. But under his guidance, the paper wasn’t reporting on anything important. He always vetoed articles he thought were “too upsetting” or if he felt that they didn’t have the right “broad appeal”.
Journalism was supposed to mean something. They were supposed to report the truth, no matter what that truth was. They weren’t supposed to print fluff-pieces about corporations and millionaires, while failing to report on the problems faced by real people every day.
Her faith in the job was faltering, and at times only Viola’s encouragement kept her going. Alexa just needed a good story; one that was impossible for her bosses to ignore. She needed one great byline and then people would start taking her a little more seriously.
