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Charmed (view source)

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** Subverted in "Once Upon a Time." Piper expresses disbelief over fairies and trolls, but her skepticism turns out to be based on her frustration with the Elders taking Leo away.
* [[Art Initiates Life]]: Young witch Kevin and his power of Thought Projection since he uses drawing as a focus.
* [[Ascend to Aa Higher Plane of Existence]]: Becoming a Whitelighter, an Elder, an Avatar etc. is this. Leo does it ''three times''.
* [[Astral Projection]]: This becomes Prue's second power. However, it's treated a bit differently: her original body seems to go unconscious, and she projects another physical body wherever she wants. Her main power of [[Mind Over Matter|telekinesis]] is useless, as her astral clone can't use it and her original body is disabled.
* [[Attack Reflector]]: Initially Prue would move [[Fireballs|fire]] and [[Energy Ball|energy]] balls back at demons. Some [[Deflector Shields]] also acted as, well, reflector shields.
* [[Authentication Byby Newspaper]]: A photo of Tony Wong holding his own death report.
* [[Babies Ever After]]: Paige and Phoebe are revealed to have three children of their own.
** And Piper finally gets the daughter she'd foreseen all the way back in Season 2.
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** Occasionally justified by the fact that powers are tied to a specific emotion, and it is hard (though not impossible) to do good things with a power that is powered by hate.
** It's also occasionally justified by the way one gets those powers. Evil powers generally get given to people who will abuse them while good powers end up with good people. That was the selection criteria for the Whitelighters and Darklighters.
*** In general, bad ("demonic") powers tend to corrupt people; hence why Phoebe got [[Drunk Onon the Dark Side]] in the series 6 episode "Witch Wars" when she absorbed all those demonic powers from an athame. The fire starter's situation might be different, since [[Witch Species|he's meant to receive those powers]] and likewise, they had good reason to doubt Phoebe's morality given that her past self had fire powers and was evil. Furthermore, Piper was [[Mama Bear|very biased]] and so could easily have been talking out of her ass.
* [[Bare Your Midriff]]: Phoebe's belly button deserved its own billing in the credits. The other sisters weren't so shy about it either.
* [[Balancing Death's Books]]
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* [[Blah Blah Blah]]: Paige once had a date that was so immensely boring that all she heard ''was'' blah blah blah; when something more interesting came up she heartily answered "blah!" and happily ran off.
* [[Blasting Time]]: Demons love to pitch fireballs but then again so do some of the not so nice beings. Strangely one family of witches, Richard's, seems to be able to blast electrical balls at will.
* [[Blessed Withwith Suck]]: Leo, as a Whitelighter/Elder, has considerable power, but almost never does anything except orb and heal.
** Until he [[Took a Level In Badass|Takes A Level In Badass]] and learns how to shoot lightning.
* [[Blonde, Brunette, Redhead]]: The season 5 finale turns the sisters into Greek Goddesses. Paige had red hair at the time and Phoebe's was turned blonde with Piper keeping hers brown. Paige hersef also cycled through all the colours having black hair in season 4, red in season 5, blonde in season 6 and brown for the rest of the series.
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* [[Curtain Camouflage]]
* [[The Danza]]: Alastair the [[Chest Monster|chameleon demon]], played by Alastair Duncan.
* [[A Date Withwith Rosie Palms]]: Concerning Phoebe.
{{quote| '''Paige:''' I can understand wanting to take a break from guys, but c'mon already, she's gonna wear out the batteries.}}
* [[Dating Catwoman]]: Or in Phoebe's case, being married to the source of all evil.
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* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: Piper, Piper, oh ''Piper.''
** Though the other sisters are no strangers to the trope, particularly Paige.
* [[Dead Person Conversation]]: They can summon the dead at any moment, [[Put Onon a Bus Toto Hell|except Prue]].
* [[Deal Withwith the Devil|Deal With the Wizard]]: Inverted. Drake [[Incredibly Lame Pun|dè Mon]], played by Billy Zane, makes a deal with a sorcerer to become human (as in, to ''gain'' a soul rather than lose one) but keep his demonic powers with the condition that using them offensively will cause him to be sent to purgatory (as in, he's forced to be ''good'' rather than bad). The deal only lasts for one year, after which Drake will die anyway (as in, the only thing this means for his place in the world is that ''he's now on a clock to die''), but as it turns out the whole deal was made with help from Cole as part of a [[Batman Gambit]] to restore Phoebe's faith in love (as in, the underlying force behind the deal was doing something ''good'').
** Another inversion, Cole was willing to transfer the essence and powers of the Source to a Wizard. Only for the deal to be ruined by Phoebe under the influence of the Seer and the unborn Source kid.
** A more traditional Faustian [[Deal Withwith the Devil]] happens in the episode ''Soul Survivor''.
* [[Death Takes a Holiday]]: And he recruits Piper to do his job for a while.
** The punny episode title of "Death Takes A Halliwell".
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* [[Drill Sergeant Nasty]]: Another whitelighter, Natalie, briefly serves as this in "Blinded by the Whitelighter" for the sisters when she prepares them for battle.
* [[Driven to Suicide]]: Cole had attempted to get the Charmed Ones angry enough at him to want to vanquish him. However, he had become [[Nigh Invulnerability|invincible]] by then, and was so powerful that [[I Cannot Self-Terminate|he couldn't even use his many powers to kill himself.]]
* [[Drunk Onon the Dark Side]]: Phoebe, in the S6 episode ''Witch Wars'', where she gets a crap-ton of demonic powers and promptly goes on a demon murder spree. [[Evil Feels Good|And she enjoys it]]. Of course, she had been going though active power withdrawal for some time and it ''was'' completely awesome but you can kind of see why the [[Powers That Be]] [[Brought Down to Normal|depowered her]] in the first place...
* [[Dueling Shows]]: With ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]''.
* [[Early Installment Weirdness]]: The first episode mentions the Three Essentials of Magic: timing, feeling, and the phases of the moon. It's never brought up again, nor is there any indication in the rest of the show that the moon's phases have any effect on their magic.
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* [[Hot Mom]]: Piper and eventually {{spoiler|Phoebe and Paige, too}}.
* [[Hot Witch]]
* [[Housewife]]: Phoebe gets turned into a [[Bewitched (TV)|Samantha Stevens-esque]] housewife by way of a magical ring. She did mention that ''[[Bewitched (TV)|Bewitched]]'' was her favorite show.
* [[How Do I Shot Web?]]: It usually takes the sister a variable length of time to master their powers when they're revealed. Particular credit goes to: Phoebe, who never was able to fully master her empathy power before it was taken from her; and Paige, who took ''5 whole seasons'' before she learnt how to heal.
* [[Human Mom, Nonhuman Dad]]: It depends on whether you view the sisters as human or nonhuman. If they're nonhuman, the trope is inverted in the case of Prue, Piper, and Phoebe (human dad/nonhuman mom). If they're human, the trope is played straight in the case of Paige (human mom/nonhuman dad). If they are human, Piper's sons and Phoebe's children have this trope apply to them, as well. Whether they're human or not, the trope is inverted in the case of Paige's children, since she married a "mortal" human, Henry, and is half Whitelighter (and thus, technically, nonhuman). Of course, Paige, as well as Piper's sons Wyatt and Chris, is half dead person, so I'm not sure how that works, but their fathers are still nonhuman. Brandon, the half-warlock from the first season, played this trope straight as well. It was inverted in the case of Cole, whose mother was a demon and his father a human.
* [[I Cannot Self-Terminate]]: Cole, having absorbed many [[Mega Manning|powers from hell]] to return to Phoebe, only causes problems for her and her sisters, so she ends up divorcing him. He also finds that his powers have made him [[Nigh Invulnerable]] and, as such, rendered him unable to kill himself from the grief. So he starts causing trouble for the girls to get them to [[Suicide Byby Cop|vanquish]] him.
** Only to [[Subverted Trope|subvert]] this trope when he explains that {{spoiler|he just wanted to try whether he really was indestructable}} and goes [[Ax Crazy]] for good after the confirmation.
*** Cole didn't explain anything. He wanted to die and was quite miserable that nothing could be done to make it happen. Now, he was told by the Avatars that this was the case and cryptically said as much to the sisters, but it was quite clear that Cole was hoping against hope that they were wrong.
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'''Prue:''' (picks up crossbow) Never used this on a Darklighter before. }}
* [[I Was Quite a Looker]]: The [[Collector of the Strange]] [[Villain of the Week]] from Season 4 modeled his handsome golem after himself as a young man. The sisters' Aunt Gail from season 2 as well when she got her youth restored.
* [[Jerkass Genie]]: Genies are tricksters and will try and twist wishes to serve their needs (usually to gain their freedom). There are two genie-centric episodes with both [[Literal Genie|literal]] and [[Jackass Genie|jerky]] genies: "Be Careful What You Witch For", and "[[I DreamofDream of Jeannie|I Dream Of Phoebe]]".
* [[Kid From the Future]]: Chris.
** They also were this themselves in "That '70s Episode".
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** Probably the most vicious attempt at this was an episode in the 4th season that took place in an insane asylum... {{spoiler|[[Mind Screw|inside Piper's mind]].}}
* [[Lesbian Vampire]]: The Queen in "Bite Me".
* [[Leaning Onon the Fourth Wall]]
* [[Lie to Thethe Beholder]]: The sisters faked their deaths at the end of season seven. In the beginning of season eight, they cast a spell to make them appear as different people to everyone but family.
* [[Life Drinker]]: Javna. He needed to regularly steal the youth of his victims, aging them into old people, in order to retain his youthful form. If he doesn't, he ages rapidly.
* [[Lighter and Softer]]: Later seasons.
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** Done again in the episode "Just Harried" when Prue's id decides to get a little action via astral projection.
* [[Living Shadow]]: Cole has one.
* [[Long-Lost Relative]]: Not only a [[Charmed (TV)/Characters|character trope]] but also a narrative one. It is basically the only thing that saved the show after {{spoiler|Prue was killed off}}. And the fact that Patty Halliwell's affair with her Whitelighter was mentioned before is the only thing that saved this from being an [[Ass Pull]].
* [[Love Cannot Overcome]]: After Prue confesses to her first season boyfriend Andy that she's a witch, he admits that he can't handle it and probably wouldn't be able to no matter how long she gave him to get used to the idea.
** This may also have been the reason that the girls' father left.
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* [[McLeaned]]: Prue, due to a conflict with the actresses and several people working on the show on the show, Alyssa Milano in particular.
** Notably, Doherty directed the episode in which Prue was killed off. Granted, the writers no doubt had options to bring Prue back, but by the point of filming, it was quite likely she wasn't coming back for Season 4.
*** ''[[Put Onon a Bus Toto Hell|Or ever again]]'', (un?)fortunately.
* [[Meet Cute]]: In a [[Clip Show]] episode, Coop describes Phoebe and Cole's meeting as this. It consisted of Phoebe nearly roundhouse kicking Cole, who catches her leg.
* [[Memory-Wiping Crew]]: The Cleaners.
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* [[Muggle Foster Parents]]: Paige Matthews was given to normal parents after her birth and didn't know her true heritage until her powers started manifesting thanks to a spell Piper had cast to bring Prue back.
* [[Mundanger]]: In "Sight Unseen", a mysterious stalker turns out to be an ordinary human and not a demon at all.
** And in "Dream Sorceror", the titular villain isn't actually a sorceror, but a scientist who built a machine that can project himself into other people's dreams and kill them, [[A Nightmare Onon Elm Street|Freddy Krueger style]]. Apparently if you die in your dreams you die in real life.
* [[My Grandson, Myself]]
* [[Necromantic]]: Inverted in "Necromancing The Stone". Apparently Grams fell in love with a Necromancer, whom she had to vanquish. He was stealing spirits in order to keep himself firmly on the living side of the line between life and death. When he comes across Grams, he tries to convince her to let both of them be resurrected by using the spirits of the Halliwel line during baby Wyatt's christening.
* [[Never Say "Die"]]: Although "kill" and "destroy" belong to their vocabulary, the sisters seem to prefer to "vanquish" demons.
** Also a clear note of [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?]].
* [[Nice Guy]]: Leo Wyatt.
* [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]]: [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]] Gideon was so determined to prevent Wyatt from [[Face Heel Turn|turning evil]] he was willing to do anything and work with anyone (even [[Emotion Eater|Barbas]]!) to make it happen. But where he crossed firmly both past the [[Moral Event Horizon]] and into this territory was the two-part season finale of season six where he was willing to completely upset the [[Balance Between Good and Evil]], work with his evil [[Mirror Universe]] counterpart, and almost destroy the sisters, all in the name of his goal...but it turns out ''he was the cause of the very thing he was trying to prevent'', with all of his [[Deal Withwith the Devil|machinations]] and attempts to kidnap, control, and remove Wyatt from the picture being what turned him evil in the first place. (At least until later, when other events [[The World Is Always Doomed|kept trying to make Wyatt that way]]. [[Status Quo Is God|They all failed, though]].)
** The one that might also take the cake: Cole is about to give the evil powers within him to a wizard, so he can finally be free and with his love Phoebe. A minute before he succeeds, Phoebe [[What an Idiot!|kills the wizard]] - essentially forcing herself to have to choose between her husband and her sisters. [[Hypocrite|Yet she has the nerve to gradually shun him forever as a result following what is, again, HER final decision.]]
*** Phoebe was tricked by the Seer into doing it for Cole and their baby's sake after which Cole takes to poisoning her with evil granted he claims to be doing it for her sake to make her feel less morality concerning the evil things he does but that is not her fault but his. Even after he was vanquished and came back he expressed his rather creepy wish to stick with her despite all her attempts to tell him to leave which he refuses to do until it drives him insane. That does make her a hypocrite for shunning after this.
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** Season 8: It's closed by {{spoiler|[[Babies Ever After|Piper's granddaughter]] with telekinesis}}.
* [[Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping]]: ''Charmed'' was Julian McMahon's first role that required him to use an American accent, and as such his native Australian accent breaks through a few times in the early Cole episodes. It tends to happen on the last word or two of his lines.
* [[Open Sesame]]: In the Arabian-themed episode "I Dream Of Phoebe", which also includes [[Literal Genie|Genies]], [[Magic Carpet|Magic Carpets]], and [[Arabian Nights (Literature)|The Forty Thieves]].
* [[Our Angels Are Different]]: Whitelighters.
* [[Our Mermaids Are Different]]: Mermaids are immortal creatures who have "hearts as cold as the ocean".
* [[Our Vampires Are Different]]: They have social hierarchy similar to bees.
* [[Parental Abandonment]]: Complete with [[Missing Mom]], [[Disappeared Dad]], [[Raised Byby Grandparents]], and [[Muggle Foster Parents]].
* [[Part-Time Hero]]
* [[Personal Gain Hurts]]: [[Anvilicious|Oh, how they drill this one in...]] It's practically the [[Trope Namer]].
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* [[Place of Power]]: Halliwell Manor conveniently sits atop a nexus of magical power. Several times demons have broken in and tried to take it for themselves.
* [[Playing Cyrano]]: Coop, for one of Phoebe's coworkers.
* [[Playing Withwith Fire]]: Most demons chuck [[Fireballs]]. There are some witches (including Phoebe in her past life) that can manipulate fire.
* [[Plot Hole]]: In Season 5, the sisters constantly referred to Cole as having betrayed them and becoming the Source of All Evil. The problem is, the latter half of Season 4 made it quite clear that Cole had been possessed by the old Source and was overtaken. The sisters were told as much by a wizard, so their distrust is completely unwarranted in the presented context.
** The Cleaners are this, as well. Shannen Doherty may have wanted off the show, but still doesn't explain their only showing up NOW.
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* [[The Power of Love]]: The greatest of all powers. Greater even than...
* [[Rule of Three|The Power Of Three]]
* [[Powers Asas Programs]]: There are demons that collect and exchange powers so they can ''broker'' them.
* [[Power Incontinence]]: Phoebe is practically the queen of this trope (not that the other sisters are entirely innocent): She doesn't have any sort of control over her premonitions until ~season 6 (and even then she never learns how to turn it off), the flying power she accidentally stole from the dragon in season 2 was unreliable to say the least and she never learned to control her empathy power ever. In act neither did Prue when she [temporarily] became an empath. Also happened to Piper "Exit Strategy", where her ability to freeze time is upgraded to [[Stuff Blowing Up]] too. Plus, Paige has struggled with this in her orbing ever since she was a high-schooler.
* [[Power Perversion Potential]]: Piper has frozen Leo on more than one occasion during sex. The first time was accidental, the next ones, not so much. Leo doesn't mind.
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* [[Puberty Superpower]]: Some powers manifest at puberty, such as the firestarter kid in "Lost and Bound".
* [[Pun-Based Title]]: Many episode titles are puns, especially puns that involve the words "witch," "charmed," etc., or the names of the characters.
* [[Put Onon a Bus]]: Darryl who was present in all seasons but the last.
** Also, Leo who left the show during the middle of the final season.
* [[Raised Byby Grandparents]]: Prue, Piper, and Phoebe were raised by their grandmother after their mother's death and father's abandonment.
* [[Rapunzel Hair]]: Piper's hair grew to waist length during the second season and stayed that way for the rest of the series. Prue's future self got waist length blonde hair. Paige got Rapunzel Hair when she was turned into Snow White and again into a wood nymph. Phoebe also got Aphrodite's floor-length tresses when she was turned into a Goddess of Love.
* [[Real Life Relative]]: Averted. While on-screen, Leo and Piper were together as were Cole and Phoebe. Off-screen, Alyssa Milano was dating Brian Krause while Shannen Doherty and Julian McMahon were a couple.
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* [[Sadly Mythtaken]]: In "Oh My Goddess!" it's said that the Greek gods were actually mortals the Elders infused with power in order to stop the Titans. This is not a problem in itself - the problem is that Gaea was stated to be one of these mortals, when in mythology she wasn't an Olympian, but the ''mother of the titans.''
* [[Scenery Porn]]: Every episode shows several flyover shots of San Francisco right after the opening credits. They're rather fond of showing the fog/clouds rolling around the Golden Gate Bridge.
* [[Seer]]: Phoebe. Then there were two demonic seers, played by Debbi Morgan and [[Charisma Carpenter]]. Actually, [[Angel (TV)|Cordy]]- err, Kira and Phoebe [[Les Yay|were a bit flirty towards each other.]]
* [[Self -Disposing Villain]]: Demons disappear after they get vanquished.
** Subverted in "The Day the Magic Died." After killing a demon mook while all magic is tempoarily down, Phoebe and Paige have to figure out what to do with the body and hide it in a closet.
* [[Sense Loss Sadness]]
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** We got a little insight when Phoebe first got the job. The person wrote in saying she was still living with her parents and was afraid of living alone. Phoebe's response, which seemed like something of an [[Ass Pull]], was that she should get a dog for a companion. The previous columnist praised this for being proactive (it actually got her out of the house) and for being nonjudgemental. Both her (and Piper's) response was simply "Get a therapist, and get a life." The columnist said hers was better and handed the job over, so she must have done something right.
* [[Taken for Granite]]: <s>[[Nightmare On Elm Street|Freddy Kruger]]</s> Robert Englund plays a [[Collector of the Strange]] who shrinks witches and turns them into clay figurines.
* [[Take That]]: In season 3, they seemed to be throwing these toward Shannen Doherty as Prue is [[Put Onon a Bus Toto Hell]]. In "Sin Francisco," she was possessed by the Deadly Sin of Pride, turning her into a raging egomaniac. "Look Who's Barking" turns her into a literal female dog, and she also was responsible for destroying Piper's wedding in "Just Harried." It seemed like everybody was grateful to see her leave.
* [[Talking to Himself]]: Especially pronounced in the season 6 finale "It's a Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad World", where [[Mirror Universe]] [[Evil Counterpart|Evil Counterparts]] of characters interact with good ones.
* [[Talk Like a Pirate]]: Pirates show up eventually in season seven. And the episode they appear in? "[[Pun-Based Title|Charrrmed!]]"
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* [[Tome of Eldritch Lore]]: The Grimoire, which is the [[Evil Counterpart|demon equivalent]] of the Book of Shadows.
* [[Took a Level In Jerkass]]: As Alyssa Milano got more creative control, Phoebe went from a likeable, well-meaning [[The Ditz|ditz]] to a self-obsessed, selfish [[Jerk Sue]].
* [[Troubled but Cute]]: Cole Turner. Possibly counts as a [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds|deconstruction]]. See: [[Unintentionally Sympathetic]] in the [[Charmed (TV)/YMMV|YMMV tab]].
* [[Twenty-Four-Hour Party People]]: Done a few times. First with Piper's baby shower and later would be done for every birthday party Piper's children had.
** You could probably also count Prue's funeral and {{spoiler|the funeral Piper, Phoebe, and Paige had when they faked their deaths}}.
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** So… Agent Brody vs. the Avatars was a showdown of [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|Well Intentioned Extremists]]? Thank goodness there was a [[Take a Third Option|third possible outcome]] to that match.
** Dr. Williamson after he became infected with the sisters' blood.
* [["What Do They Fear?" Episode]]: Whenever Barbas is the [[Monster of the Week|Demon Of The Week]], this is the basis of the episode. Well, he ''is'' the [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin|Demon of Fear]].
** Also inverted in Its A Bad, Bad World, where Barbas is the Demon of ''Hope''
* [[What Happened to Thethe Mouse?]]: In Season 3, it was hinted that Cole was working for the Triad for something in return. At the end of the season, it was revealed to be his father's soul, which they had somehow acquired years earlier. However, after obtaining his father's soul, it is never stated what Cole did with it and is never mentioned again.
* [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?]]: Played with throughout the series - originally, [[Our Demons Are Different|demons were humans]] who had [[Deal Withwith the Devil|intentionally given up their souls]], but as time wore on, more variations occured: a [[Half-Human Hybrid|half-manticore]] child, families of demons who were [[Always Chaotic Evil|apparently born that way]], and of course [[Half-Human Hybrid|Co]][[Love Interest|le]] [[Big Bad|Tur]][[Disney Death|ner]]. The sisters end up killing them all at some point anyway.
** Played straight (painfully so) in a later season, with a demon [[Heel Face Turn|trying to help the sisters]] in return for a soul. [[Stuffed in The Fridge|Needlessly killed]] by the [[Big Bad]] before she can become human again, but [[Redemption Equals Death|after holding up her side of the bargain]].
*** Kyra actually did turn human again, apparently resulting in missed fanservice (her demonic clothes were implied to have disappeared offscreen before Piper gave her a nice little dress). This only made her vanquish even more painful.
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