Corruption and Purification
Corruption and the Darkness.
Darkness is a powerful, underhanded enemy, and in moments of weakness it can corrupt even those with powerful hearts. If one is not careful, they might find themselves an unwitting, and unwilling tool of the Darkness, by letting the dark portion of their hearts have control. The more emotionally unstable, or tapped into the negative emotions of despair, fear, and hatred someone is, the easier it is to corrupt them - though sometimes Dark Energy can simply overwhelm and forcefully corrupt someone.
On an IC Level, it’s possible for villains to corrupt your character. Perhaps through underhanded trickery, or perhaps through putting your character into a state of complete despair, allowing them to corrupt you, or through good old fashioned capture and brainwashing. OOCly, This cannot happen without your consent, however! You’ll never be FORCED into becoming corrupted, and anyone telling you otherwise should be referred to this policy.
If your character does become corrupted, how you choose to handle it is up to you, but typically this comes with them pushing away their friends, acting hostile and very much not ‘acting like themselves.’ It should be very obvious to your friends your family, or characters who know your character very well, that something is not right. The effects of being corrupted differ from character to character, and in particular some magical origins react to the effects in different or more extreme ways.
On an actionable level, you should let the staff know, via +request, that you’re about to do such a plot, and how you expect it to go down, so staff is aware of what is happening. If the corruption is meant to be a permanent change for your character, there are some extra steps that need to be taken on the staff side of things, and we’ll need to look over such a concept and approve it to make sure it’s acceptable. Otherwise, please let staff know when you expect to be free of the corruption. As a rule, such plots shouldn’t last much longer than a few good plot scenes and any exceptions should be approved ahead of time.
Purification
The act of removing corruption/darkness/Dark Energy is Purification - the act of healing one's heart and feelings from corruption. This usually takes the form of some sort of powerful, love and happiness filled burst of energy in an attack, such as Moon Healing Escalation or Happiness Big Bang!, but can also be channeled into someone without the use of some sort of attack if it's part of a character's power set. Brainwashing, corruption of the heart and overpowering negative emotions can be healed through the use of purification. Beings of darkness potentially risk letting themselves be ripped apart on a fundamental level as they're made to realize the truth of love and happiness and what it means to be something other than a horrible monster. Corrupted individuals may be forced to face the darkness in their heart and made to realize the horribleness and wrongness of their path and the fate that lay ahead of them should they continue forward on such a path. Corrupted and darkness filled individuals with strong wills, such as Queen Beryl, still take damage from purification attempts while resisting the overall 'cleansing' effects of being purified. Non-Corrupted individuals still take damage from most attacks with a purifying element to them, but don't receive any benefit or effect from the purification. Rare attacks only purify and will not harm people (even if they are villainous) who aren't corrupted or suffused with Dark Energy.
Attempts to purify aren't always successful - the longer someone's been corrupted and the more immersed in corruption they are, the less likely it is to be able to separate someone from their darkness. Purification has a much easier time being successful on characters who were corrupted against their will - characters who willingly chose darkness are likely to experience it as an attack on their wellbeing than the removal of unwanted feelings, but purification is usually painful in either case. Characters are more likely to succeed in attempts to purify individuals who's hearts have been opened by connections and heartfelt pleas.
Some types of magical power are more or less conducive to Purification. For example, a device mages do not often purify (with no canon examples), while almost all Pretty Cures have access to at least one purification attack or ability. That's not to say either a purifying Device Mage or Pretty Cure without purification couldn't be done, just that it usually isn't the case and might require some additional justification in your application.
