Unique small detail (not appearance/design) in a character such as unique habit, verbal tics, etc. Do you like it? What's your fav?

Peaceful_Critic said:
I would say I mostly agree with you, that small details in characterization often improve them as characters. How L generally holds himself, would be a good example. In this case, how L moves is constantly shown, has an established reason(it improves his brain power by whatever percent), and has the purpose of making him more memorable to the viewer in a scene by scene basis. On the other hand, some likes/dislikes by characters do about nothing to improve them. I mean let's compare Ryuk's love of apples to Izaya's fear of dogs. Ryuk would be a good example as his love of apples was used by Light for some plot points(i.e ). By comparison, I, knowing that Izaya is afraid of dogs because of a short scene shown, is of little relevance to both his character and the story as a whole. It does nothing to inform you about more interesting parts of his character(unlike Ryuk's love of apples which informs you in his world the shinigami place has food that's less juicy and serves as another reason as to why he wants to hang out in the human world), and as far as the anime goes it isn't really used against him at any point in the story. Likewise, a lot of characters who love sweets(i.e Ciel, Victorique, and Yui), easily could've had a fondness of any food with little change about them as characters or any plot points of the show. These details are too inconsequential to do anything for them or to leave a lasting impression at all imo. So, in those cases, I probably would call the detail a neutral thing, that doesn't exactly improve anything about them as characters. I just don't share the love of having small details for the purpose of itself as you stated having. I mean it is better than no characterization at all, but, otherwise, other types of characterization would be better if you aren't going to do anything with that detail.

I like "useless" characterization traits as well, because the story doesn't seem to be so determined and mechanic, if you have this.
It makes characters very human to have some useless quirks and added traits too that don't need to be a big part of the story or their core personality. That doesn't mean they don't have any more important characterization.
You surely have tons of preferences and quirks too like everyone has and you are too a human with everything that makes you a person. That's why I think that not every detail has to add something to the story.

I think you internalized a lot of western writing style there. In east asian writing it seems like they are more open to traits or also subplots that "lead nowhere" (like we would say) and they are also more used to slower pacing like iyashikeis etc we don't such stuff in this form, imo.