Colorful Contrails

Normal people chase rainbows. Rainbows chase her.

Whenever something or someone moves at high-speed, especially when flying or running, there is a good chance a path of color will be left behind. Said path may be stylized with sparkles, fire, Battle Aura, stripes, or even rainbows, for the sake of Rule of Cool.

A contrail is a physical presence of some kind being emitted by the engine of the motion as exhaust. In real life, contrails are the condensation of water exhaust products from burning jet fuel that mixes with other particulate exhaust products to form a cloud. You do not see it at ground level because the air temperatures are too warm for this to occur.

The defining principle here that would keep it from being a form of Motion Blur is that a blur is not physically there, but is supposed to be an optical illusion for depicting a Ludicrous Speed. This is a direct product of the cause of motion (such as jet engine exhaust) or is used to depict a power or ability that would cause such motion (like depicting a Barrier Warrior's force field as being used as a propellant) — or when it cannot be determined if it is one or the other.

Compare Burning Rubber, Speed Stripes, and Speed Echoes. When applied to a bullet, see Every Bullet is a Tracer; when applied to swords (or other melee weapons) see Sword Lines.

Can be associated with Rainbows and Unicorns if unicorns leave a trail of colors.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• AKIRA: In the film adaptation, the Capsules' bikes have trailing red and yellow taillights as they speed across the city.
• Dragon Ball: Characters leave a contrail behind them in the same color as their Battle Aura. Additionally, the Kinto'un/Flying Nimbus cloud leaves behind a trail in the same color as its body.
• Lyrical Nanoha: Mages who fly often leave a contrail of their magic color behind them. In close-ups, you can see the contrails coming from just below their feet. This allows the audience to follow the action from distant shots.
• Initial D: Cars leave trailing red taillights as they race down tracks on mountainous roads. These contrails are only left by the main cast and the opponents they race.
• Pokémon:
  • Pokémon: The Original Series: In The Battling Eevee Brothers, Mikey commands his Eevee to perform a Take Down attack, followed by a "rage tackle'' attack. The latter increases Eevee's speed such much that dashes of colored light trail in its wake.
  • Pokémon: The First Movie: After Mewtwo destroys Giovanni’s complex in a fit of rage, he propels himself away through the sky, leaving a bright blue streak behind.
  • Pokémon the Series: Ruby and Sapphire: In Come What May, Jessie attaches a device to her Dustox that spews a trail of rainbow dust while the Pokemon is using Tackle (the device also gives Dustox's Poison Sting and Whirlwind attacks a seven-colored makeover).
• Wangan Midnight: Trailing red taillights are often left by the main cast during high speed races on the Wangan Highway. These are most often seen during moments of high speed and intensity.

Comic Books

• Marvel Universe:
  • Power Pack: Julie Power, also known as Lightspeed, leaves a three-colored rainbow trail behind her when she flies. Since the Power Kids are known for swapping powers occasionally, the same thing happens to her siblings if they have the lightspeed power.
  • Runaways: Karoline Dean leaves rainbow light as she flies, though hers has the full spectrum and the colors are blended. She and Julie Powers even suspend their fight to compliment each other's trails.
  • X-Men: Cannonball can produce a biochemical reaction similar to a jet engine that allows him to fly. It's unique because the contrail obscures his body from the waist down.
• Starfire often has her hair glowing and trailing behind her when she reaches high flight speeds, making herself look like a shooting star from a distance. One comic actually suggests this is literally her hair stretching out, as she leaves it as a trail to allow herself to be tracked.
• Invoked in Just Imagine... Stan Lee Creating the DC Universe for its alternate take on The Flash. Rather than depicting the speedster with a lightning bolt motif, this version is made to resemble a prismatic flash of light, with an all-white costume and rainbow-colored tassels attached to her helmet, forming a bright rainbow streak as she zips along.

Fan Works

• A Certain Magical Friendship: Context_SHIFT: In "Assault on the City of Science - magicians_AND_espers", Rainbow Dash is described as leaving a rainbow-coloured afterimage when moving in Super-Speed.

Films — Animation

• The Adventures of the American Rabbit: Once Robert achieves a fast enough speed on his roller skates, he leaves a trail behind him in an American stars-and-stripes pattern, which transfers onto himself to become The American Rabbit superhero.
• My Little Pony: Equestria Girls:
  • In the first movie, human Rainbow Dash leaves a rainbow-colored trail just like her pony counterpart after she gains wings through the Magical Girl transformation and starts flying.
  • From Legend of Everfree onward, Rainbow Dash gains Super-Speed and leaves the rainbow-colored trail behind her when running.
• In Turning Red, a red trail is seen behind Mei along with Speed Stripes just before she rams into her mother during the climax.

Films — Live-Action

• E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial: In the final scene, after the alien ship takes off, it abruptly accelerates, leaving a literal rainbow contrail.
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: While not “colorful”, the Battle of the Department of Mysteries features smoky trails left by Appariting combatants; black for the Death Eaters and white for the Order of the Phoenix.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • Avengers: Age of Ultron: Pietro Maximoff leaves a blue-white trail as he moves at lightning-fast speeds.
  • Captain America: Civil War: Wanda Maximoff first displays magic-propelled levitation here, with trails of red streaming from her hands.
• Spaceballs: Parodied when Spaceball One goes to Ludicrous Speed and leaves a plaid contrail.
• Star Trek: The Motion Picture: The newly-refit Enterprise produces a spectacular rainbow contrail effect when entering warp drive. This was toned down quite a bit in subsequent films.
• Star Wars: Space ships leave a subtle streak behind when entering or exiting hyperspace. From the perspective of the ship itself, the stars appear to stretch into lines instead of tiny dots of light.
• TRON:
  • Light cycles leave a solid wall of light in their wake, as they are used in a game where the goal is to make the other racer(s) crash into the opposite wall.
  • Continued in TRON: Legacy, although the light walls are now three-dimensional and can be curved or leave the ground. And they're not limited to light cycles, but also part of a dogfight between light planes and a light bomber.

Literature

• Harry Potter
  • Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone: On his first trip to Diagon Alley, Harry tries many wands in Garrick Ollivander’s shop before finding the one that suits him best. When he waves his perfect match for the first time, a trail of red and gold sparks shoots out of the end (a subtle allusion to his future placement in Gryffindor House at Hogwarts).
  • Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Hagrid’s flying motorcycle has been upgraded by Arthur Weasly with several combat-style enhancements. One of these includes a “dragonfire” accelerator, which causes blue-white flames to burst from the exhaust as the bike is propelled through the air.

Live-Action TV

• Automan: Automan's superfast car leaves a blue streak behind it.
• The Flash (2014): Speedsters give off lightning trails when they run. These may be differently-colored in order to indicate certain conditions or to differentiate speedsters in the same scene:
  • Barry Allen, Jesse Quick, Wally West, and Jay Garrick have yellow lightning, indicating a pure speed force connection (though Barry and Jay have a reddish tint to theirs).
  • Reverse Flash and Nora West-Allen have red lightning under the effects of the Negative Speed Force.
  • Blue lightning is an indicator of the speedster using Velocity X serum.
  • Savitar and Godspeed have white lightning, indicating incredible, unnatural speed.
  • Accelerated Man and Iris (when temporarily given Barry's powers in Season 4) have violet lightning, which becomes an early clue that the "Mystery Girl" with purple and yellow lightning is Barry and Iris's daughter.
• Heroes: In "The Second Coming", Hiro meets his "archnemesis" Daphne, who is a speedster. He stops time, then follows the motion blur streak which exists In-Universe to where she's stopped — and then she moves! She's moving so fast that even with time standing still she can travel at (what appears to be) normal speed.
• Power Rangers:
  • Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: Each hero leaves a vertical trail of the same color as their costume when teleporting (an effect common to most, if not all, iterations of the franchise).
  • Chouriki Sentai Ohranger/Power Rangers Zeo: The Ohblocker robos/Super Zeozords take off into the skies after winning their first battle, each one leaving a contrail matching their color scheme.
• Smallville
  • Metropolis' anonymous hero (Clark) is called "The Red and Blue Blur" (or just "The Blur" for short) because all anyone can see is Clark's trademark red and blue clothing zip by as he performs heroic acts.
  • In the episode where Clark meets the Smallville version of the Flash, they have a race where the Flash looks like a blur to Clark.
• Star Trek: Starships leave a streak when they go to warp speed. From the perspective of the starship itself, the stars appear to be elongated streaks separated into different wavelengths of light.

Toys

• BIONICLE: In an animation featuring the Phantoka, the Toa and Makuta are distinguished by the light and dark contrails they leave behind respectively.

Video Games

• Battlerite: Characters who are hit with Zander's Sheep Trick while hasted gain a rainbow trail behind them as they move.
• BIT.TRIP: CommanderVideo often has a yellow-orange-blue-pink-purple rainbow behind him when he moves. Like so.◊
• Castle Crashers: The player characters reach the Evil Wizard's castle after an enemy gauntlet only for it to launch into the air. The heroes respond by... doing the exact same thing, launching off of the ground with their magic and flying to catch up with the airborne castle, with a colorful trail behind them, even colored after each character's magic element.
• Elsword: As Eve airdashes, her drones (which aid her in doing so) emit a blue streak (or pink in Awakening Mode).
• Freedom Planet: In Pangu Lagoon, when Lilac passes through the Time Gates, her Dragon Boost becomes super-charged, greatly increasing its power. When she uses the super-charged Dragon Boost, a blue trail appears behind her. Blue trail also appears when she inflicts the Extreme Mêlée Revenge on Lord Brevon for hurting Milla after the final fight with multiple Dragon Boosts, with the last one creating the trail.
• Homeworld: Small ships like fighters leave a trail behind them that not only looks cool but also helps the player see them when the camera is zoomed out.
• Hyper Light Drifter: A dash move leaves a red streak and Speed Echoes in the Drifter's wake.
• Mega Man X5: The F-Laser weapon shoots out a controllable drone that leaves behind trails of light. The trails can deal damage to enemies as much as the drone itself does.
• Mega Man X8: Whenever a character dashes, faint contrails of their primary colors as they dash (blue for X without the Neutral Armor, red for Zero or X's Icarus Armor, black for Axl, etc.). This also applies when performing a dashing wall kick.
• Pokémon: Ho-Oh's designation is literally the "Rainbow Pokémon", and some versions of the Pokédex claim that a rainbow forms behind it as it flies.
• Rocket League: The customization feature allows you to change the type of boost and trails you leave behind to you liking, in a variety of colors. This means you can have a car propelled by a literal bassline and leaving behind a trail of cloud and stars inspired by Dragon Ball Z.
• In Rodina, Xeno Scouts leave behind themselves a trail of green smoke which helps the player in spotting them from large distances. By holding the "clutch" button, the player's ship can similarly emit a lime trail which helps indicate the ship's direction of motion, which is not necessarily the same one it's facing.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • In the 3D games, characters will, under certain circumstances, leave behind a color-coded trail of light. Sometimes, it fits the color of the character. Other times, like with Shadow's orange trail, it doesn't.
  • Various minor characters sometimes generate contrails as well. If the contrail is flat, horizontal, and ribbon-like, it usually means Sonic, or other playable characters, can run atop the contrail as if it was a long, solid platform and chase down the character generating the contrail. Examples include gargoyles in Sonic and the Secret Rings, who leave yellow trails that Sonic can use to travel between segments in Levitated Ruin; and SQUID and WYVERN in Sonic Frontiers, with SQUID leaving a purple contrail from its body and WYVERN leaving a red contrail from its spines, both of which allow Sonic to run along them to catch up to and attack them while they're flying through the air.
• SpeedRunners has colorful trails that appear behind your character when you reach high speeds as Revenue-Enhancing Devices. You can create your own trails using the in-game editor and potentially have them put up for sale, earning a cut of the profits.
• Super Smash Bros.: Sonic has a blue streak behind him when doing certain moves, such as a Homing Attack.
• Terraria has the Meowmere, a weapon whose Sword Beams fire bouncing, meowing Nyan Cat projectiles that leave rainbows behind them, and the Meowmere Minecart, which basically lets you ride in Nyan Cat.

Web Animation

• Mystery Skulls Animated: Arthur leaves behind a brief trail of orange dust when running, while Vivi leaves blue, Mystery leaves red and Lewis leaves purple.
• The YouTube meme Nyan Cat is shown flying with a rainbow trail following it.
• RWBY:
  • Ruby Rose has a speed Semblance that allows her to move extremely fast. Whenever she activates it, she leaves behind a highly styalised trail of red rose petals that then dissipate into the wind.
  • Neon Katt zips around on a pair of rollerblades, leaving behind a colourful rainbow streak whenever she moves. She is inspired by the Nyan Cat meme.
  • Harriet Bree has a speed Semblance that is lightning themed. Whenever she activates it, lightning arcs through her eyes and feet, and she leaves behind streaks of yellow lightning as she runs.
  • In Volume 8, Oscar begins unconsciously tapping into an ability that super-speed his strikes; it creates so many Speed Echoes of his arm that they blur together into a green contrail effect. It's sign of the scale of power inheritance Oscar has received from Ozpin, who used the same ability against Cinder in Volume 3.

Webcomics

• Close To Your Heart: The knights can be seen from a distance by the colored trail of light they each leave behind as they fly.

Western Animation

• Bananaman: The eponymous hero often has yellow trails behind him when he flies.
• Mighty Mouse leaves a red contrail in flight. Indeed, his most unusual power is the ability to manipulate that contrail like a flexible band of matter, usually to restrain an adversary.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • In general, certain pegasi, usually the fastest fliers, leave colorful contrails behind themselves as they fly. Rainbow Dash leaves a rainbow trail in the same colors as her mane, Lightning Dust has an orange-and-yellow lightning bolt the color of her mane on a green background the color of her coat, and the Wonderbolts trail thunderclouds.
  • "Power Ponies": When Pinkie Pie/Filli-Second moves in Super-Speed, she trails a pink-and-magenta streak superimposed with a white lightning bolt.
  • "Twilight's Kingdom": After Twilight temporarily absorbs the other three princesses' magic, she leaves a trail of white sparkles and indigo and purple stripes in the same color as her mane while flying.
  • "What About Discord?": Discord leaves a plaid contrail behind himself when flying next to Rainbow Dash.
• The Powerpuff Girls: The three eponymous superheroines tend to leave a brightly colored trail matching their respective colors when they fly. Later episodes have people who develop similar powers leaving their own similarly colored trails, one episode having an empowered squirrel leaving an orange colored one. The Powerpuff Girls (2016) subtly expands on this with the girls' new unique motifs involving shapes by adding them to their contrails. Blossom has squares, Bubbles has circles and Buttercup has triangles.
• Rick and Morty: In "Total Rickall", the fantasy character Tinkles leaves a rainbow colored trail◊ while flying.
• Silly Symphonies: The show's version of The Tortoise and the Hare has Max Hare leave a blue streak when he runs.
• The Simpsons: In "Lisa Goes Gaga", instead of the typical black or white smoke, Lady Gaga’s personal train spews a full-on rainbow trail from its smokestack.
• Uncle Grandpa: Giant Realistic Flying Tiger always leaves a rainbow trail behind her. In one episode, other characters follow Tiger's trail to find her.
• Xiaolin Showdown: The Wings of Tinabi can carry the user into the sky, leaving a rainbow-colored trail of light behind it.

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