I think I'd like to see what people would do in their leisure time or domestic work . You see so many stories about travel and war, but you rarely see people interact outside of that. And if you do, it's usually not made unique for a setting that isn't Earth.
What cutlery do they use? What does a morning routine look like? In a world where fire magic is commonplace, how do they cook? How would those things evolve over centuries?
Fantasy especially feels stagnant for this, but I think sci-fi is guilty of this too. Are there things in specific works where an innocuous detail made you wonder more about how a setting worked?
I'm a linguistics and anthropology type of guy. I wanna see more worldbuilding with the little things in everyday language and culture.
For example sci-fi authors back then might have predicted the smartphone but probably didn't expect skeuomorphism, like the fact we still have buttons and sliders in UI. Or like how the American accent was actually the original accent of English in England, and only after the American colonies were established, non-rhotacism became associated with higher class in England.
Another example, my Indian girlfriend and I were discussing, in India the electrical switches are inverted to the US standard, so down is on, up is off. She says phrases in the opposite way too, like "come off" to mean my "come on." Maybe something there...
Have you read Embassytown by Mieville? If you're a linguistic/anthropology wonk then I imagine it'll be right up your alley.
Not yet, but now it's going on the list. Thanks for the rec!