What’s being corrupted is the person’s doubts and fears, their hesitation to be themselves, the limits that they believe they need because society tells them they need it. The kind of corruption that can only be accomplished by letting that person have a genuine, enthusiastic role in their own corruption.
It’s letting people self corrupt because they tried suppressing themselves and all it gave them was pain. Where the person they become is the one they always wanted to be, and all I really had to do was protect them while they were vulnerable. Let them realize the potential for this version of themselves was inside them all along, and now they’re safe to embrace that.
Corruption, at its core, is transactional. You're giving up something (sometimes literally but often control, dignity, agency, things beaten into you as societal conventions), in exchange for gaining something you truly want; power, freedom, a preferred form. You're not truly losing anything, just trading in the weight of those external expectations and acquiring a commensurate means to be closer to who you should be instead.
Effectively, you're returning a gift you didn't ask for or want and exchanging it for store credit.
