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1 yr ago
Current Nine years seems a lot longer than it feels.
2 yrs ago
Ninety-nine bottles of bottles of bottles of bottles of bottles of bottles of bottles of bottles of bottles on the wall
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4 yrs ago
Biting Spider Writing
7 yrs ago
They will look for him from the white tower...but he will not return, from mountains or from sea...
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7 yrs ago
RIDE WITH ME, MY FRIENDS! WE DO NOT STOP 'TIL VALHALLA!
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In Lem's Stash 2 yrs ago Forum: Test Forum


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Physical Description
Lili is a fifteen year old girl, a little bit tall for her age at five feet, four inches. As a young teenager, she's physically not fully developed, slender and petite with little in the way of curvature. A cheerful smile constantly adorns her face, and her bright blue eyes constantly glisten with a barely-restrained excitement and verve for life. Her long, wavy blonde hair, cut in messy bangs in front and about to the small of her back, is filled with flyways, untamable no matter how much she tries to control it. And she does try to control it; she is very proud of her hair, and takes exceptionally good care of it even if it won't listen to a thing she does. Though her arms are stick-thin—she doesn't much use them for anything that would build considerable muscle—her legs are quite long and powerful for a fifteen-year-old, as befits a runner for her high school's track team. She has large hands, long-fingered and delicate, and is constantly self-conscious of them. She has a long, ragged scar that runs down the back of her left arm as a result of an accident she had with a bicycle when she was twelve, and she still hates the things today.

Calla is almost exactly the same in appearance to Lili. Her eyes, her hair, her height, her build, the irrepressible excitement in her eyes, the constant smile; from the outside looking in, she's almost indistinguishable from her IRL self. There are a number of very small changes, though, each of which represents a bit of her subconscious desires. Hair straight and tamed, falling all the way down her thighs without requiring much upkeep. Perfect. Rippled scar missing, replaced with smooth, unblemished skin. Perfect. Hands small and fine. Perfect. Nothing you would notice if you didn't know her waking self. She holds herself in a very relaxed way, tapping her feet and bobbing her head to a soundtrack only she can hear and speaking very informally to everyone. She wears an elaborate robe over lightweight clothing, no armor whatsoever.

Character Conceptualization
Lili's life has been a pressure cooker from the start.

Sophia and Anton Lindholm had tried to have children many, many times. But nothing. Sophia blamed herself, and Anton blamed himself. It was a tense, stressful situation for both of them, and though neither wanted to say anything about it, it was starting to stretch their marriage.

And then came Lili. The miracle baby. Born prematurely and with underdeveloped lungs, she spent her first two years in the hospital. Her parents hovered around her anxiously and constantly, worried for their little miracle. And when she got out of the hospital and all three of them went home, they wept with happiness. Their little girl was perfect.

Perfect.

The word 'perfect' would haunt Lili for the rest of her life. The word 'miracle' came with it. Her parents were absolutely doting, and she wanted for little. Up through six years old, her life was...perfect. And then she entered first grade, and the pressure started.

Sophia and Anton never yelled at her or scolded her. They never restricted anything of hers, and they never directly told her that she'd done something wrong. But whenever—even in first grade—she would bring home a poor grade, they would go quiet, subdued. Dinner would be awkward. Lili learned very early on that if she wanted her parents to be happy, then she needed to work hard. And as she aged and learned about why she remembered the hospital, how much of a 'miracle' she was, that pressure to make her parents happier only increased.

That's not to say she wilted. In fact, she thrived under the pressure. She began to take a fierce and intense pride in how well she did in schooling very early, and she began to put that pressure on herself instead of taking it from her parents. To always get the highest score on every exam. Soon, it began to extend past grades. She began to put pressure on herself to be as cheerful as she could. To make as many friends as she possibly could. To be the best friend to them as she could be. To be...perfect.

A girl can only take so much pressure.

In her last year of middle school—the workload more than she'd ever had before, more people to make friends with, harder to be happy—she snapped. During mathematics class, she received an exam back and did worse than she thought. The next thing she remembers is being at home, in bed, with her mom Sophia hugging her and crying. Her memories of the next week and a half are hazy and fragmented at best. Her complete nervous breakdown had made her parents feel horrible about what they'd done to their daughter. Their miracle child. Even once she returned to school, people, even friends, looked at her worriedly, like she'd break if breathed on a little too hard. Her omnipresent smile was rarely seen.

And then she was offered something by her parents that would change her life. Sophia's job as a lecturer was bringing her to Boston, Massachusetts, and did she want to come along and go to school there, make new friends?

She's spent almost a year in America now, and her smile's come back. She's taken it a little bit easier, joining the track team to find even more people to interact with. She'd always enjoyed running, after all. One of her new friends introduced her some months ago to a fantastic new game on the market, and always game to try something new, she booted up Pariah. She's happy now. But still, she nurses a secret guilt. Her parents worry about her so much. She wishes she could live up to their expectations. That she could be more...

Perfect.

Other Information


She speaks with a heavy German accent that I have literally no idea how to transcribe.

"Achoo!"

Maki Kirika sniffled and wiped her nose as she stomped up the street, her dad's old trench coat—now hers, she supposed—worn over her brand-new Ishin Academy uniform. She'd been having trouble sleeping for the past couple nights. And really, who wouldn't lose some sleep if they were about to start classes at the second-ranked hero academy in the entire country? She was lucky she'd been able to sleep at all. But unfortunately, it had given her a frustratingly bad cold. And though she was nearly over it now, fever all gone and no longer coughing, she was still incredibly congested and far more sneezy than she would have liked. Which wasn't quite the first impression she wanted to make on her fellow students. She wanted to pop out in a good way, not look like a sick mess.

Well. It was better to introduce herself looking like a sick mess than looking like nothing at all. She shivered as a particularly nippy wind blew over her. It was cold today. She looked down briefly at the trench coat. Thanks for the coat, dad.

It wasn't long before she stood before the imposing gate of Ishin Academy, a crowd of people standing in front. Probably other first years. Well, time to make a first impression, hmm? An impression that people would remember. And so she marched up to the thickest part of the crowd and started to shove her way through. "Coming through! Out of the way!" Frustrated voices followed voices her and she smiled to herself. All eyes on her.

When she broke through, she sighed quietly to herself before continuing. Someone shouted behind her and she tossed a glance over her shoulder. A girl with brilliant green hair had popped out of the crowd in a similar fashion to her and she gave a little internal cringe. Was that really what she'd looked like, pushing her way through the crowd? How embarrassing.

She shook her head, throwing the thought out. No time for that kind of thing today. Just rapid footsteps as she walked quickly towards the school proper. There'd be lockers for her to stick her coat in, right?
In Lem's Stash 2 yrs ago Forum: Test Forum
I did something dumb here haha


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Physical Description
At 155cm (about 5'1"), Kayo stands at a height just slightly shorter than usual (which only helps her, really). Her most noticeable physical trait at first glance is her long curtain of pale green hair, which she takes very, very good care of (it takes her nearly an hour to brush it out in the morning, it's a nightmare). It has the smooth and dry texture of snake scales. Her skin is smooth and fine due to an equal amount of care. She has a narrow face and a sharply pointed chin. Finally we reach her brilliant green eyes, which are slightly off-putting to some people: they glow dimly in low light, and her pupils are narrow and slitted, like a snake's. Surrounding them is a pair of glasses, half-framed with thin black wire.

Though it's not part of her Quirk proper, she additionally has a number of holdovers from her father, a heteromorphic viper mutation. Superficially, there are of course, the eyes. In addition, however, her canine teeth are replaced with needle-sharp fangs half an inch long. Her strangely-textured hair is hydrophobic, taking a fair deal of effort to saturate it at all, and a patch of pale green scales persistently grows on her right cheek. She is also extremely flexible; though she's no contortionist, basically every joint on her body is a double one by nature. And all that is disregarding the unusually small vertebrae of which there are seven extra, giving her vastly improved spinal flexibility. All of this allows her to move around with a great deal of agility and grace.

Personal History
Nigata Kayo did not have an exceptionally good childhood.

It was alright for the first couple years. Her mother—Nigata Kagami, an excellent doctor loved by all—had always been a touch strange, but she was too young to really understand anything about it. Until very early in elementary school, everything was fine. Everything was fine. And then her Quirk manifested itself just slightly later than normal. And it manifested itself while she was playing with her mother.

She doesn't remember a whole lot of this time, but she does remember her mother grunting in surprise and pain and then looking at her with sudden malice. And from then on, her childhood grew harder.

Her mother dropped the act, revealing herself as the raging narcissist that she was. Someone who only became a doctor for the accolades and praise. Someone who only acted nice because it made people love her. And somebody who had a minor and pedestrian Quirk to adjust her own pain tolerance. Because of her Quirk, Kayo's did very little to her. But now she knew that her daughter's Quirk was more powerful than her own. And she took offense. She became a monster to her daughter. She ignored her. She psychologically tormented her. When she was bad, she forced her to look in a mirror and use her own Quirk on herself until she was a screaming, crying wreck (mirrors still terrify her to this day). And yet, when she was good—when she did what was expected of her, hid her Quirk, hid her eyes, stayed out of sight, and gave her mother the attention she craved—she was doted on. It was...confusing. Disorienting. And the back-and-forth pull of validation and torment began to break her down completely. So it's not a stretch to imagine that Kayo began to pull inwards, and give herself the ego that her mother no longer did.

This was only aggravated in school, where she would occasionally accidentally use her Quirk on other kids. And though she apologized profusely, they began to avoid her or even call her a villain, all but one. And so, the only way for her to rationalize it and preserve the ego that she was beginning to build up for herself was to assert: they're all dumb. They're all dumb idiots. And to make it worse, as her Quirk began to build in power more and more, pain stopped repulsing her. Instead, causing pain began to...intrigue her.

All of these factors conspired to forge her into an obsessive narcissist who, additionally, was very fascinated by pain. And when she was a little way into middle school, these all combined to give her a horrible fixation on a classmate who she grew absolutely obsessed with. And when she fixed him with her eyes, when she caused that terrible pain, she felt a thrill like nothing else. Though she managed to escape her obsession, it still bubbled just under the surface, waiting for a new target. Crushing it down as best she could, she decided something then and there.

If her mom was that jealous of her Quirk, then what would insult her more than becoming a hero?

Character Arc
As a character, Kayo is an exploration on inversions.

She initially goes to IA out of spite for her mother, but eventually really, truly wants to become a hero. She starts her character arc with manipulation and obsession, and ends it with contrition and redemption. Rather than the character course of someone who wants to become a hero, aims straight for that goal and then perhaps dips down onto a dark place and becomes a villain, she is a character who starts on that dark path towards villainy, but manages to pull herself out of that doom spiral and become somebody that she can legitimately be proud of.

And so, her character development over time is just that. The obsessive pit that she digs herself down into is not only a low point for everyone else around her, but a low point for her own health, safety, and sanity. The way that she crawls out of that pit—the challenges she faces in order to get there, the people that she's hurt that she needs to hopefully make amends to—is where the great majority of her character will be, and I'm very excited to see it.

Quirk Description
Kayo is so toxic that even looking at her can be dangerous.

Her Quirk Venom Eyes can be activated any time she makes direct eye contact with somebody, directly tapping into the target's nervous system—specifically the pain receptors. With a pulse of a sickly yellow glow from her snakelike eyes, she can dial them up or down, causing either a searing, full-body pain or a deadening numbness, though she's significantly better at using the pain than she is the numbness.

There are a few limits on this power. Since it requires direct eye contact, it has a limited range, and is almost completely useless, at least at the start, on people who either hide their eyes, don't have eyes to hide, can't use their eyes, or have no nerves to aggravate. Each pulse from her Venom Eyes additionally accrues a brief cooldown period where her optic nerves need to rest from the sudden stimulation.


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Physical Description
Kirika is quite a tall girl, standing at nearly 170cm (or roughly 5'7"), with a stick-thin physique that looks more like a slender boy's body than a girl's. She feels somewhat like it should make her self-conscious, but she's thankful for it; anything to stick out more. Also somewhat helpful in that endeavor is her hair. Smooth and pin-straight, it falls in a violent silver-white curtain to more or less the small of her back. It matches her eyes, the pale gray of morning fog. The way she walks helps her grab attention as well: a smooth, crisp, snapping stride, moving perhaps a little bit more quickly than is necessary. It makes her look like she's perpetually hurrying, and it comforts her the way people look at her a little bit strangely when she's going about her business.

When not wearing the dour school uniform that she's entrapped within, she wears things that, while well within acceptable range, tend to stick out a little bit. Her most common example is a tan trench coat that her father gave her when she went off to school ("In case it's raining, sweetie!"). It's a little longer on her than it is on her father, dropping just about to the middle of her shins.

Personal History
Maki Kirika’s first couple years were completely normal. Her mother and father, an editor and photographer respectively, doted on her. And while of course she doesn’t remember anything of that time, it was almost idyllic until she was about halfway through her second year, when her Quirk manifested and she vanished. Not just from her parents' sight. Not just from their hearing. Not just from their photos and family videos. No, her face even vanished from their memories.

And so, her first memories are of smothering attention. Smothering attention and very seldom being left alone. And she didn't understand why, until one day she realized that her parents didn't notice her.

The next years of her life would be characterized by a feeling of suffocation. When she was at home, it was that feeling of suffocation that worried parents give. She had very little privacy; even being alone in her room was a rarity, even up through middle school. Personal space was a thing that belonged to other people, and her mom was never too far away to reach out and touch her hand. When she was at school, that suffocation was the feeling of choking fear that comes with being forgotten. Her Quirk was unstable for a long time—still is, to some extent—and there were times when she would simply vanish, and times when she couldn't reappear. Though she always told people that touch would break it, every time it happened, she would tense up when peoples' eyes skated over her. Even worse were those rare moments when touching people wouldn't break it, at least not for a few seconds. She thought. She never could tell on her own, after all.

About this time was when her attention-hogging personality began to come to the fore. She couldn't tell when her Quirk was active, it was true. At least not on her own. But if she was up in everyone's faces, when the whole room was looking at her, then she would always know. She would know. And, she convinced herself—in defiance of the facts—that the closer she was to everyone, the less likely it was to not break on touch. And with that personality came the start of a seething resentment. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that she always needed to make sure people could see and hear her before she did anything. It wasn't fair that she was terrified of fading away, being un-personed so thoroughly nobody would ever remember her. It wasn't fair.

But as she aged and gained some control over her Quirk, she began to experience another side of it. Yes, it was unpredictable, and when it went off without her knowing, it was genuinely terrifying. But, as she discovered when she was cornered on a city street at night before fading both her and her friend away, it could also be exceptionally useful. And that got her to thinking. Using her Quirk in public would certainly be frowned upon—if anybody could really tell, that was. But it would be difficult to learn how to keep it from activating on its own without any kind of instruction.

Somewhere to learn how to properly use her Quirk, to peel back the anger that she had towards it, and to harness its burgeoning power as a force for good? Well, she'd lived in Sapporo her whole life. Ishin academy was just down the road, right?

Character Arc
Kirika's character arc is founded deeply in her fear. How her fear is created, how her fear is handled, and how her fear is eventually resolved. She has a remarkably powerful utility Quirk, something that could be genuinely terrifying if she were to embrace it all immediately. But she can't properly use it, because she fears it desperately. She grew up being terrified of being un-personed and forgotten since she can remember, and it's going to take her a long, long time to move past that.

That moving on is going to form the crux of her character development. As she gains better control over her Quirk, her fear will slowly begin to abate. And though of course there will be moments of relapse where her Quirk activates all on its own and she returns to that instinctual fear, she will move past them, and eventually past that bone-deep fear to truly take advantage of the Quirk that she's been cursed or—she will eventually realize—blessed with.

Quirk Description
Kirika's Quirk, and the great object of her fear, is Null Field. At a thought, she can project an invisible bubble around her, up to more or less five feet across. She, and anybody within that bubble when it forms, becomes imperceptible. They'll still trigger motion detectors, infrared lasers; they're still there. But living things struggle with the same. They're not made invisible. More like...they're rendered so unbelievably unremarkable that people don't notice them, no matter where they are. The same goes for pictures of them, video recordings, and even memories; though the memory itself stays intact, there's no face to the person.

Other than the somewhat restrictive size limit that requires people to stay close to Kirika, there aren't a lot of inherent factors that limit its use. Though it does constantly drain her energy when it's active, it's more of a passive drain than anything else. She may become tired and hungry a little bit more quickly and easily, but it's nothing she really notices. So duration isn't an issue. The main restriction placed upon its use is when anybody within the bubble does anything that would get them noticed for sure. Touching someone, throwing an object with an easily traceable flight path, having their footprints followed back to them; when one member of the bubble is noticed, then it immediately pops and reveals everybody. And while there's no set duration on the Null Field, once it's brought down it can't be thrown up again for at least a couple minutes. No do-overs.

In addition, the field will break whenever Kirika falls asleep or is knocked unconscious—for the most part. Though unlikely, it can stay up through sleep. And this is when Kirika is the most afraid. Because if it won't break, even when she's not conscious...will it ever break at all?
In Lem's Stash 2 yrs ago Forum: Test Forum
@Dead Cruiser

So far my character is an Aether-Ship guard, basically, born and raised. So if your character has spent any time in one, they could have interacted at one point.

(There's a lot going on with my character thus far, let me know if you're interested in pursuing something like that and I can go into detail)
C'mon Gowi, you know I can't resist loading myself down with games!
Oh hell yes I am NOT missing this one. Sign me right up!

Location: Uhladein, Eastern Marches



At the edge of Quinnlash's vision, the ogre crumpled into itself with one last roar, dissolving into rancid nothingness as her cannon burned it away, scattering whatever remained of it to the wind and rain.

Near the walls, Ice Queen piloted down the smoldering remnants of a Void roc’s carcass as it crumbled.

The last echo of thunder from the retreating storm rumbled in the distance.

Outside the walls, the Void's screaming grew louder.

She closed her eye and enjoyed the noise, desperately savoring the cacophony; a gorgeous symphony of explosions and screaming. Really, what could be better? What better way was there to spend her new life?

When she opened her eye again, the boiling gray clouds overhead had exhausted themselves. The final trickles of rain dripped down from the archway where she was standing, one or two more drops making its way into the soggy mess that was now her hair, braid long undone and the strands lying sopping wet over her shoulders and back. She spat a strand out in irritation, but grinned all the same. They’d made it through with…well, not a minimum of casualties—Zecimia had been a Hunter for a very long time now, and she frankly had no idea how many humans had met their ends at the ravening maws of the Void.

But she was fine. And in the end, wasn’t that what was important?

From below came a new sound, and she looked down. Far below her, she could see the heaving mass of sickening flesh that was now consuming Voidlings whole. She rolled her eye. "Fuckin’ drama queen." But Freakshow's little performance wasn’t what was making the sound. No, that was the army of skittering Void spider-things that were rapidly swarming up the walls. And, if her ears were right as usual, they were starting to climb up the forever-echoing elevator shaft as well. The smile grew wider. This was gonna be fun!

She leapt from the arched window into a quick, graceful half-turn. Or it would have been graceful, if her mop of hair hadn’t whirled around and slapped her in the face, sending her stumbling. She growled deep in her throat, hating how embarrassing it was. So in lieu of any further acrobatics, she rent her soul again, replacing the soulflame in the window where she’d just been standing. All four windows were filled now with roaring fire now. There was absolutely no way a Voidling could ever punch through. Her growl turned into a deep and protracted groan of pain, which in turn transformed into guttural words to Galiel and his cohort of imbeciles.

"Heads up. There’s about to be a lot of screaming from the windows, and you’re gonna hear more screaming and several explosions from the elevator shaft. You're safe, you'll be fine. Those fires can't burn out, and I'll be below. Don’t you dare lose focus. Rain stopped, we’re almost through this mess. Don’t fuck it up now."

Down the gaping hole in the center, she watched as the gray walls were slowly encroached with black, skittering shapes. And though they shied away from the light of the Emberstone, they wouldn’t shy away enough. She reloaded, and her pained smile grew wider and sharper. This was what she lived for.

Then, with a low chuckle, she toppled over the edge.

As she plummeted, she twisted in the air with jets of flame until she was falling legs-down. Her cannon began its low roar. Not a high charge for sure, and she certainly didn’t have a lot left in her. But the fragments that she’d torn away before were beginning to become whole again, and the flame that was her ember was burning brighter. She took aim at the leading edge of the swarm—where the fuck were they all coming from, anyway?—and her chuckle became an unhinged laugh as the flower bloomed once more. The flash of firelight lit the inside just as the lightning had Uhladein, and in the confined space, the sound of the cannon was the roll of thunder.

She let the blast carry her a ways back up the shaft, reloading as she went, and slowed her fall with a steady stream of flames. Still, by the time the thunder in Undying Light was ready again, she’d drawn level with the rapidly escalating spider-things. Another blast, another flash of lightning, another roar of thunder. This time she went straight to the other wall, striking it just as the spiders reached her. She reloaded again and kicked off the wall, forcing a jet of flame out from her foot as she did. It rolled down the tower, melting shrieking, chittering things into putrid nothing as it went. With the force from the kick she bounced back to the center of the tower, just above the encroaching black. Her smile winked out, her lips went tight. As much as she wanted to, she couldn't just keep doing this. She had something important to protect. This could no longer be fun.

Time. She needed more time. She needed her cannon to charge. Her eye flicked back up the shaft. The Void was only about fifty feet down now from the Hearthfire now, and less every second. They were so much faster than she’d thought.

Time. She had no time. By the time Undying Light was ready, the pyromancers above would be slaughtered. She hated this. She hated all of this. But she wouldn't leave them, obviously. She couldn't. Because—

The flicker of a familiar voice began to ring in her ears—

You are a pyromancer. Pyromancers like us are the final line, and have the final say. You must not shirk in your duty. You must not leave the fire. And you must not abandon your comrades.

Before she'd realized, she'd put Undying Light on her back—

You are a pyromancer. Pyromancers like us are the final line. You must not abandon your comrades.

Every muscle tensed—

You are a pyromancer.

Her whole body shook—

You are a pyromancer.

Her ember surged—The volcano erupted—

YOU ARE THE FINAL LINE.

Her eye snapped wide—ignited and incandesced within her skull—felt like it was bubbling

And with a raw, untempered scream of agony, rage, and desperate fear—

She tapped into her inner flame—

And let the power flow.

Blazing arcs of fire roared out of her hands and she halted in the air, suspended by her own withering heat. Her untied hair flew upwards in the sudden dry wind and whipped around her head like a great ashen crown.

The lightning came, and refused to fade.

The thunder rolled forever.

The tower was bathed with a fierce and wild light as she scoured the walls around her, turning any Voidlings the blaze so much as neared into a snowfall of ash and cinders. A distant part of her was frustrated that her soul was so splintered, or else she could have done so much more mama would be disappointed in me. But the rest of her mind blazed with its own flame as memories tore through it, fragmented memories that she’d buried so very deep within.

After what felt like hours but must have only been a minute or so, the lightning ebbed, and the thunder went quiet. Her embersoul raged within her entire body, the sudden and massive use of pyromancy stoking the furnace until she was sure her skin would split and she would bleed lava. The light went out of her, and she began to fall. The swarm was still coming, but she’d pushed it back enough. The pyromancers would be able to light the Hearth before they could climb to the top again. Gritting her teeth to stop another scream from tearing her throat as pain wracked her failing body, she ripped Undying Light from her back. It quaked against her, and she could feel and smell the hot metal cooking the skin and flesh of her trembling hands. She gave vent to one last roar, and one last time, the lightning flashed.

With no flame left within her to correct her course, she blasted out of the great shaft trailing fire, smoke, and ash, and slammed into the unforgiving stone wall twenty feet off the ground. She fell to the floor in a crumpled heap, hacking and wheezing. Her ember flared even hotter as it began to fix her blackened, battered form. She was pretty sure she was crying. Memories splintered into fractals in her mind as she desperately tried to blot them out the only way she knew how. Pulling herself to her hands and knees, she groaned through her teeth, wiped the burned charcoal stain of what was once blood from her face, and spat furiously at the pyromancers as the crystal began to glow brighter:

"You’re fucking welcome, you fucking garbage."
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