I was curious if there are any traditions in your world where people give tokens to someone they're interested in? Like our Valentine's Day. If so please tell us about the holiday.
Aside from the ones mentioned here?
Hm... In the world of QC, giving tokens of affection is usually wrapped up in the courtship process, so there arenât many occasions that involve exchanging them casually. Gift-giving is serious business. xD
Possibly the exception is in Kartura. They donât have marriage and courtship customs the way Izcapor, Tawar, and Sinado do, so the odds of them celebrating romance in a way similar to RL is quite high. I imagine they probably have a pair of holidays that might work roughly the same way Valentineâs Day and White Day work in anime...
Theyâre a month apart, so the holidays are just jointly referred to as âGrebe Monthâ (after the Great Crested Grebes that are known for presenting gifts of weeds to each other when courting! ^^).Â
During the month, everyone who is of-age is encouraged to present tokens of affection to the person theyâve most recently become interested in. It is then considered tradition for the recipient to wait until the very last day of the month to reciprocate, ostensibly either so that they have plenty of time to decide whether or not they return the gifterâs feelings, or so that they have time to find a way to gently turn them down if they donât...
The earlier in the month you give your gift, the bolder, more admirable, and more devoted to your feelings you look, so part of the fun is determining what kind of message youâre trying to send (and of course, trying to screw up your courage enough to actually go through with it. ;D).
Itâs all very dramatic and agonizing for the would-be lovers involved: the suspense, the will-they, wonât-they, etc...Â
Itâs all part of the fun though, and once a Karturan is past a certain age or has - more or less - committed to one partner, they stop taking it too seriously. :) Some couples even compete to see who can surprise the other with a proper Grebe gift first, because it then forces the other person to wait a whole month before they can present a gift back!Â
Thanks for the question! Had to get my worldbuilding hat out of my closet for this one, but it was worth it, lol.