History Main / LifesWorkRuined

Alice has been spending the the last N years of her life focusing on a single great project, putting most or all of her leisure time and free money into it. Finally, it's approaching completion...but just before she can reveal it to the world at large, an unlikely and destructive chain of DisasterDominoes and violent intruders conspires to utterly wreck everything she has accomplished. Cue BigNo. Or if you're looking to mix it up, {{Angrish}}. Specially if she had NoPlansNoPrototypeNoBackup.

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* Subverted in RealLife with Sir Isaac Newton. In his early career he was not very good at getting himself published, he tended to just let the finished work pile up on his desk. One day his dog knocked over a candle and much of his life's work up to that point went up in flames. So he sat down and wrote it all out again. "Diamond! Thou little knowest the mischief thou hast done!".
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Russell_Wallace Alfred Russell Wallace]] was a Victorian naturalist whose work parallelled Darwin's. In 1848 he began a 4-year expedition to the Amazon collecting plant and animal specimens. In 1852 he took ship back to England with his collection. Four weeks later the ship caught fire. The crew abandoned ship but most of Wallace's collection was destroyed. At least it was insured.
* [[http://nethackwiki.com/wiki/DeathOnAStick DeathOnAStick]], who spent a year and a half on a single game of ''NetHack'', spending most of that time collecting rocks, transforming them into gems, putting them into [[BagOfHolding bags]], and creating [[MonsterAllies pet giants]] to hold the bags full of gems. Then he accidentally drank a cursed potion of gain level, which moves you up a ''[[StealthPun dungeon]]'' level, which put him past a PointOfNoReturn. Without his gems.

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* A variation occurs in ''TheMoomins'', where a philatelist ruins his ability to add to his stamp collection by finishing it. After a bout of depression he becomes a botanist.

* In CMKornbluth's short story "The Mindworm" about [[spoiler: a psychic vampire]], the main character walks in on an artist who has finally set aside the time to undertake his MagnumOpus and unceremoniously smashes the raw material he painstakingly acquired. Apparently [[spoiler: emotional states were like flavors]], and he wanted a unique dish.

* In CMKornbluth's short story "The Mindworm" about [[spoiler: a PsychicVampire]], the main character walks in on an artist who has finally set aside the time to undertake his MagnumOpus and unceremoniously smashes the raw material he painstakingly acquired. Apparently [[spoiler: emotional states were like flavors]], and he wanted a unique dish.

* In the sci-fi short story ''The Mindworm'' about [[spoiler: a vampire that feeds on people's minds]], the main character walks in on an artist who has just completed his ultimate masterpiece and unceremoniously smashes it. Apparently [[spoiler: emotional states were like flavors]], and he wanted a unique dish.

** Homer at the beginning of "The Wettest Stories Ever Told", when he figures out the pattern of the wall decor and Lisa points out a break in the pattern.

* Played for laughs in a British sketch show starring ex-[[TheGoonShow Goon]] Michael Bentine. A guest on an interview show has spent ten years building a magnificent model of St. Paul's Cathedral out of matchsticks. Unfortunately the heat of the studio lights cause it to catch fire. The interviewer mutters, "Well, I expect we'll be seeing you again in ten years. Only this time I'd suggest taking the match heads off first."

* In the first ''DennisTheMenace'' movie, Mr. Wilson spent forty years growing a plant that only flowers once for a few seconds. So he invites the neighborhood to the flowering, but Dennis causes a distraction at the crucial instant.

* In ''How to Make an American Quilt'', the protagonist's dissertation on quilting traditions gets blown away by an aggressive storm. She's pretty cheerful about it, though, because [[ThePowerOfLove she's learned that love is more important]] than work. Or something.

* An episode of ''{{Blackadder}} the Third'' centers on Baldrick's unwittingly destroying Dr. SamuelJohnson's life's work, the very first English dictionary. Johnson is, of course, enraged...until it turns out the manuscript that Baldrick burned was ''Blackadder's'' life's work, a novel that he'd spent over seven years writing. [[spoiler:And then at the end of the episode, Baldrick really ''does'' toss the dictionary into the fire.]]

'''Blackadder:''' ''(leaves the room)'' '''''[[BigNo OH GOD, NO!!]]''''' ''(returns)'' Thank you, sir.

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* This is Lady Vayle's reason for revenge against Artix in ''VideoGame/AdventureQuestWorlds'' and ''VideoGame/{{DragonFable}}''. [[spoiler:She had dedicated her entire life in the pursuit of necromancy in order to [[{{Necromantic}} bring her brother back]], but thanks to Noxus being a dick and Artix destroying the crystal that had her brother's spirit orb inside after having to destroy the MonsterFromBeyondTheVeil that her brother's body had become...yeah.]]
* In the InteractiveFiction game ''Damnatio Memoriae'', you have very limited time to hide or destroy all evidence of your supernatural powers before your room is searched. One of the damning pieces of evidence is your book, years in writing, that describes faraway lands (which you couldn't have possibly written without using your magic.) If you don't manage to hide it, other options are either to destroy it (at which point the character bleakly remarks he'll never be able to muster up the energy to write it again) or magically change its apparent authorship, so that someone else is credited for your life's work.

* ''BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'', in an episode where Mr Freeze vents his frustration by destroying peoples' life's work.
* ''AvatarTheLastAirbender'': "MY CABBAGES!!!"
* {{Spongebob Squarepants}}'s crashing into a truck loaded with beetroot or something similar ruins a old guys memoirs which were written with red ink

* Gavin's Project Orwell software in ''{{KateModern}}''. When it gets stolen, he becomes bitter and delusional.

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* A major part of the fourth game in the ''AceAttorney'' series involves this: [[spoiler: Valant Gramarye has been waiting for seven years to inherit his mentor's magic tricks. Turns out they passed on to someone else. And he finds this out on ''the day he was due to finally perform them'']].
* This is Lady Vayle's reason for revenge against Artix in ''AdventureQuestWorlds'' and ''VideoGame/{{DragonFable}}''. [[spoiler:She had dedicated her entire life in the pursuit of necromancy in order to [[{{Necromantic}} bring her brother back]], but thanks to Noxus being a dick and Artix destroying the crystal that had her brother's spirit orb inside after having to destroy the MonsterFromBeyondTheVeil that her brother's body had become...yeah.]]

* This is Lady Vayle's reason for revenge against Artix in ''AdventureQuestWorlds'' and ''DragonFable''. [[spoiler:She had dedicated her entire life in the pursuit of necromancy in order to [[{{Necromantic}} bring her brother back]], but thanks to Noxus being a dick and Artix destroying the crystal that had her brother's spirit orb inside after having to destroy the MonsterFromBeyondTheVeil that her brother's body had become...yeah.]]

* Sarda of ''[[EightBitTheatre 8-bit Theater]]'' has a habit of doing this to people, when he does [[http://www.nuklearpower.com/2004/12/30/episode-496-a-wizard-did-itto-himself/ it to himself]].

* A major part of the fourth game in the ''AceAttorney'' series involves this: [[spoiler: Valant Gramarye has been waiting for seven years to inherit his mentor's magic tricks. Turns out they passed on to someone else. And he finds this out on ''the day he was due to finally perform them'' ]].

* There's a legend about Saint Albertus Magnus who supposedly had built a working android, which could walk, would do household chores, and according to some could even speak. Albertus' greatest student Thomas Aquinas destroyed it (probably because he considered it an abomination against God), after which Albertus was said to have spoken: "The work of fifteen/twenty/thirty years is ruined." In Latin, of course.

* Amy burns Jo's manuscript in ''LittleWomen''. It was clearly stated that Jo spent years (she's sixteen) of her life on this thing and that it's irretrievable.

* In a ''{{Wings}}'' episode, Lowell shows Joe the model blimp he's spent years creating and makes Joe promise not to play with it. Joe plays it with anyway, and it promptly gets smashed behind a door.

* RealLife story of [[http://nethack.wikia.com/wiki/DeathOnAStick DeathOnAStick]], who spent a year and a half on a single game of ''NetHack'', spending most of that time collecting rocks, transforming them into gems, putting them into [[BagOfHolding bags]], and creating [[MonsterAllies pet giants]] to hold the bags full of gems. Then he accidentally drank a cursed potion of gain level, which moves you up a ''[[StealthPun dungeon]]'' level, which put him past a PointOfNoReturn. Without his gems.

* In the ''MidsomerMurders'' epsiode "Orchis Fatalis", someone takes revenge on an orchid collector by pouring weedkiller over his priceless orchid collection. This being Midsomer, things soon escalate to murder.

* Similarly, in ''Wonder Boys'', Michael Douglas' character feels pretty good about losing the [[{{Doorstopper}} several thousand pages]] of his second novel, probably to indicate that it [[SophomoreSlump didn't measure up]] to his brilliant first one.
* In the first DennistheMenace movie, Mr. Wilson spent forty years growing a plant that only flowers once for a few seconds. So he invites the neighborhood to the flowering, but Dennis causes a distraction at the crucial instant.

* Sarda of ''EightBitTheatre'' has a habit of doing this to people, when he does [[http://www.nuklearpower.com/2004/12/30/episode-496-a-wizard-did-itto-himself/ it to himself]].

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