you guys ever notice how in his dialogue when he's in bertie's presence, jeeves uses quotations and references constantly, but in his THOUGHTS during "bertie changes his mind," he doesn't use any? this is obviously because he doesn't care if we the audience know he knows shakespeare, but he will languish and die if he doesn't get to dazzle bertie with his wit and knowledge every five seconds
not romantic not platonic but a secret third thing [what would happen between earth and the moon if the earth stopped spinning as illustrated by xkcd randall munroe]
somehow instead of saying "as a treat", I've started using the phrase "for morale", as if my body is a ship and its crew, and I (the captain) have to keep us in high spirits, lest we suffer a mutiny in the coming days.
and so I will eat this small block of fancy cheese, for morale. I will take a break and drink some tea, for morale. I will pick up that weird bug, for morale.
I'm not sure if it helps, but it does entertain me
You ever just wake up from an incredibly graphic and realistic nightmare that was a pure psychological horror based on your own personal phobias and trauma and just roll over like “aw shit I got too hot last night I guess.” And then make toast like you didn’t just experience the nine circles of hell before 9 am
Expanding a thought from a conversation this morning:
In general, I think "Is X out-of-character?" is not a terribly useful question for a writer. It shuts down possibility, and interesting directions you could take a character.
A better question, I believe, is "What would it take for Character to do X?" What extremity would she find herself in, where X starts to look like a good idea? What loyalties or fears leave him with X as his only option? THAT'S where a potentially interesting story lies.
In practice, I find that you can often justify much more from a character than you initially dreamed you could: some of my best stories come from "What might drive Character to do [thing he would never do]?" As long as you make it clear to the reader what the hell pushed your character to this point, you've got the seed of a compelling story on your hands.