Personal Raincloud

File:Jbtfsplk 3114.jpg

A cartoon and comic trope. A character having a bad day, or particularly depressed, will have his own small dark cloud following him, often raining and occasionally hitting him with lightning.

Compare to Fisher King for this trope on a much grander scale.

Examples of Personal Raincloud include:

Anime and Manga

• Tenchi Muyo GXP has one of these following unlucky protagonist Seina as part of his Establishing Character Moment.
• In Urusei Yatsura, its actually sentient, and having a bit of a tiff with its spouse—a sentient, one-legged umbrella (a fairly common Obake named "karakasa.")
• Juvia of Fairy Tail has an entire rainstorm following her. Until her Heel Face Turn.

Comic Books

• Calamity James in The Beano.
• The luckless title character of Crushed: The Doomed Kitty Adventures (from the creators of Supermegatopia) is sometimes depicted as being followed by a small "cloud of doom".
• During the Ninja High School: Hawaii arc. A character named Thor had one hanging around him for a good amount though not because he was depressed. But rather he was a demi-god (yet doesn't know it yet) and can't control his powers properly. Oddly this works to his advantage as he manages to get a job watering a garden.
• In the Spirou et Fantasio comic entitled "Spirou à New-York", the leader of the Cosa Nostra (Don Vito "Lucky" Cortizone) is constantly followed around by a stormcloud, because of his unnatural bad luck. Said cloud is shaped like a skull no less.
• In The Sandman, Thor gets one to represent his hangover, which makes sense seeing as he's a storm-god.

Eastern European Animation

• In the Soviet series of cartoon shorts Cossacks (Казаки), the second episode has the titular characters go to various countries to play their national soccer teams. The last game is in England, where there is a rain cloud that only covers the stadium, playing up the stereotype that it always rains in London.

Fanfic

• In With Strings Attached, John acquires one after he gains the Kansael. The cloud changes with his mood; the stormier it is, the angrier he is.
• In Earth and Sky, Applejack gets one when she's brooding after an argument with Soarin.

Film

• Italian comedy/satire film Fantozzi features the titular character, an office clerk so unlucky that he almost always has a raincloud following him when going on vacation! This has become known as "nuvoletta dell'impiegato" ("clerk's cloud" in Italian). Notably, the one time he is lost at sea and lacking water, the raincloud appears and rains... two meters away from the boat.
• Hot Shots Part Deux
• The Truman Show: When the storm comes in, the sprinklers over Truman accidentally turn on first and follow Truman around before the rest turn on.
• Men in Black II

Agent K: When you get sad it always seems to rain. Laura: Lots of people get sad when it rains! Agent K: It rains because you're sad.

• The title character in Date With An Angel waxes wrathful and inflicts some on the antagonists.

Literature

• Inevitable Discworld example: Played with in Interesting Times. Rincewind (thanks to a quantum weather butterfly) gets a personal raincloud. Later on, this is upgraded to a personal snowstorm (right in the middle of an actual rain storm). Both cases sort of turn out to his advantage, though; the snow helps Cohen and the Horde find him, and the rain leads to him discovering the real Red Army.
• Justified in The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy, where a character has rain always follow him, but in this case, it's explained that it's because he's a rain god and doesn't know it, so the rain wants to follow him.
• Used uncomically twice in the Deverry series; once on the opposing and once on their own army.
• Discussed in the Warrior Cats series:

Leafpool (to Jaypaw): You drift around the camp like a little dark cloud looking for someone to rain on.

Live Action TV

• In an episode of Scrubs in which the four main characters were depressed, a raincloud appeared over their table in the cafeteria.
• Conversed in Just Shoot Me, "Nina's Birthday":

Maya: Finch, the copier's not working. Dennis: Maybe the dark cloud over your head shorted it out.

• Used as a throw-away gag in Sabrina the Teenage Witch, where one of the titular character's aunts mentions she's been feeling under the weather in a grouchy tone of voice...with a rain-and-thunder cloud over her head.
• Happens to Justin in an episode of Wizards of Waverly Place after he upsets mother nature. She thinks he got off lightly as she could have given him his own personal earthquake.

Newspaper Comics

• Dilbert used this once or twice in the form of the "cloud of doom".
• Garfield once featured this weather report: "It's warm and sunny, except for a single house in the suburbs."'
  • Inverted in an early strip when Garfield mocks Odie asking who could possibly love a grinning idiot like him. Then it starts raining everywhere except on Odie.

Garfield: You stay out of this!

• Possible ur-example: Joe Btfsplk from the newspaper strip Lil Abner.
• This often happened to Wellington in the British newspaper strip The Perishers, at least in the 1960s. On one occasion he pretended to be depressed and then stood in his rhubarb patch so the cloud would water it (as well as him).
• One strip of Pearls Before Swine featured Rat standing under his Personal Raincloud; Pig enters, and Rat explains, "Ever have one of those days?" Next day's strip, and Rat is still under the raincloud. Pig looks at him, then stands under the cloud with him, saying, "What are friends for?"
• Pigpen in Peanuts has a personal dust cloud.
  • If I remember rightly, unlucky Charlie Brown has rain fall just for him in one strip.
• In Mutts, Sourpuss complains one day about the clouds not having decided to rain or not. He gets one. Lasts for several days—once he asks about the flowers and it shifts off, for one panel.

Tabletop Games

• The "homebrewed" Falling Anvil Falling Anvil discipline for Dungeons and Dragons version 3.5 allows you to do a short-lived this to your enemy to hit them with a lightning bolt.

Video Games

• Sad characters in Animal Crossing have these.
• Kingdom of Loathing has a personal raincloud familiar. The KOL Wiki also says this:

"The concept of a "personal raincloud" that follows someone around probably dates from the "world's worst jinx" character Joe Btfspl in the Al Capp comic strip Lil Abner. Personal dust clouds or rainclouds have appeared with numerous other characters since then, including Pig-Pen in the Peanuts comic strip and the animated Schleprock in The Pebbles and Bamm Bamm Show (also a terrible jinx). Rain and rainclouds follow the character Rob McKenna in So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish by Douglas Adams wherever he goes. A localized rain-and-thundercloud also floats above the rolling home of The Addams Family in their original Hanna-Barbera animated series."

• One of the power-ups in Mario Kart Wii.
• This is one of the bad presents in Toejam and Earl. Open one up and a little raincloud follows you for a while, occasionally zapping you with lightning bolts and draining your health.
• We then have Brutal Legend and the Drowning Doom Bride, whose personal raincloud can slow people down and hit people with lightning bolts should the Bride be harmed. The effects stack with multiple Brides out on the field.
• There's one of these in the original Wario Land. Okay, it's avoidable, and seems to be more the cloud trying to strike Wario with lightning for some malicious reason, but otherwise fits the trope.
• Magically generating one of these is actually key to defeating the Final Boss of King's Quest V Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder.
• Super Mario RPG has a variant with Mallow, who's power over the weather causes it to rain when he cries.
• The short adventure game Ulitsa Dimitrova gives a personal snowfall before the player character dies.
• In the Worms games where it's present, worms targeted with the weapon "Marked for Death" will have one of these on them.
• One of the Emoticons in Ragnarok Online generates one of those.
• Referenced during a conversation with Kaidan in Mass Effect 1.

Shepard: Talk to me, Kaidan. You've got a little black raincloud sitting over your head. Kaidan: I'll try to keep the deck dry, ma'am.

• One of the top-end powers in the Storm Summoning set in City of Heroes lets you create one of these at will, although it will stay where you put it instead of following you.

Web Original

• The writer of the blog The Final Season of LOST as Seen by Someone Who Has Never Seen LOST describes the smoke monster as one of these. Throughout his recaps, he refers to the smoke monster as "Sad Day Monster".

Webcomics

• Played oddly- though hilariously- in this Dominic Deegan strip.
• This is an actual spell in MSF High. An unreleased supplement allows you to follow it with lightning zaps that do damage.
• In Sinfest, they appear in thought bubbles, but still have external effects.
  • Or outside, after selling your soul.

Western Animation

• The Addams Family have a permanent storm cloud over their house, at least in the cartoons.
• An episode of Courage the Cowardly Dog has Eustace affected by this due to a curse placed on him till he learned to show kindness. The more selfish he was, the worse it got.
• Darkwing Duck features this on a few occasions, especially when Morgana hits him with a curse.
• Ord from Dragon Tales sometimes has one of these to appear over his head.
• In The Emperors New Groove, villainess Yzma and her lackey Kronk get struck by lightning from one of these clouds and fall into a chasm. Their recovery is as quick as it is inexplicable.
• Happens to The Pink Panther in the 1978 cartoon "Sprinkle Me Pink". In the end, a visit to a therapist allows the panther to will the cloud away-just in time for an actual thunderstorm to come rolling in.
• Subverted somewhat in Pocoyo, where it turns out that the cloud just wants to be friends.
• Rugrats used this once. When the kids were all drawing "home movies" about themselves, Chuckie depicted himself and his father like this. (Keep in mind, Chuckie is only two.)
• On Sushi Pack, Sir Darkly, the personification of sadness and gloom, usually shows up with a storm cloud that rains misery on others.
• In Teen Titans, Raven's personal rain cloud floods the kitchen!
  • Starfire had one too for a short while.
• In Disney's Winnie the Pooh, Eeyore is shown with one of these when the characters are introduced in the inside cover of the book.
  • In a story of My Friends Tigger & Pooh, Eeyore actually contacts the Super Sleuths because he wants his dark cloud back. He had actually had a happy moment and it had gone away.
• The Classic Disney Shorts Casey Bats Again, (a sequel to Casey at the Bat) Casey has a cloud raining on him after striking out, which then parts after receiving news that he's about to be a father. But when his child (whom Casey hoped to groom as his ball-playing heir) turns out to be a girl, the cloud returns. When a second pregnancy yields girl triplets, three clouds appear over his house.
• Frequently used on My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic, as clouds of various sizes are routinely created, destroyed, and activated by pegasi. Inverted in "The Ticket Master" when the Pegasus Rainbow Dash tries to get on Twilight Sparkle's good side by making a hole in a looming rain cloud so that it rains on everyone except her.
  • Played straight in the season two premiere when Twilight loses hope and becomes her own Evil Counterpart. It's played with due to the chaos, making it a cotton candy cloud that's raining chocolate milk... which Discord then takes and eats.
  • In 'The Mysterious Mare Do Well', Rainbow Dash is seeing lying on her own personal raincloud when she's complaining about not being seen as a hero.
  • Invoked by Rainbow Dash in Ponyville Confidential, who pushes a cloud over the Cutie Mark Crusaders and makes it rain on them as revenge for their embarrassing gossip column.
  • Apple Bloom gets a personal storm cloud in "Call of the Cutie" when she's depressed over (seemingly) being the only pony in her class who doesn't have her Cutie Mark yet. Rainbow Dash is kind enough to remove it for her.
• Would have happened to Kiina in the sequel of Bionicle: The Legend Reborn, as a result of her less-than-perfect control over her Elemental Powers. Would have, if the movie hadn't been scrapped.
• In the Tex Avery cartoon "Big Heel-Watha", the tribal leader is Chief Rain-In-The-Face, who has a tiny storm cloud over his face (his theme music, of course, is "Singin' In The Rain").
• In The Miniavengers, Marion's super power is to create these by crying.
• Hilariously parodied in the Hungarian animation series Hungarikum where national hero Kossuth is constantly having one of these above his head since his birth. There's an entire episode devoted to breaking the curse. Why is it a parody? Because there's a Hungarian folk song with a passage about rain falling onto Kossuth's hat. After Edward Teller's unsuccessful attempt at changing the climate of his hat via nuclear detonation (not only it failed to dissipate the cloud, it caused acid rain), the God of the Hungarians finally solves the case by invoking the next passage from the folk song that he'll receive blessings equal to the amount of rain falling onto his hat. And behold: from them on the raincloud followed his hat instead of him. Yes, this series is known for the massive amount of Crazy Awesome and Refuge in Audacity when it comes to parodising Hungarian national symbols.
• Played differently in Total Drama Island. In the "What Do They Fear?" Episode, Geoff admits to being afraid of hail. So Chris has a remote-controlled hail cloud follow him around and pelt him.

Lindsay: Look, that cloud is following him. Awww, it's like his own baby cloud. I want one, too! Here, cloudy-cloud!

• One scene in Fantastic Planet has the protagonist being chased by a personal rain cloud. It was being controlled by his Draag owner, and even zapped him in the face with lightning.
• In addition to black cats following him, having his head through a broken mirror, and being under a ladder stuck to his shell, this happens to Filbert of Rocko's Modern Life when bad luck and misfortune infests his pathetic soul for all eternity.
• In the 2010 Pound Puppies series, a puppy who thinks he's bad luck has one of these (Later revealed to have been engineered by some con artist cats).