The Quest for Glory
is a Fan Fiction based on The Loud House written by Tales of Interest/Just Some Ordinary Dude.
Set after season five, the story focuses on the annual Royal Woods Astonishing Quest that is coming up, but this year, the stakes are much bigger than ever before. With a prize of one hundred thousand dollars, the citizens of Royal Woods, including the Loud family, are all competing fiercely to achieve victory. But there is a scheme cooking behind the scenes. Returning villains Dr Linnaeus and the Miller family have teamed up to win the cash prize to fund their nefarious schemes, and are using the tough and mighty Babs Bestie as their tool to guarantee victory. Now the Louds and friends must not only compete with each other, but also defeat this unstoppable force that threatens all their chances of winning. Babs Bestie and Just Some Ordinary Dude's other characters now have a character sheet here.
The story was written by Tales of Interest (also known as Just Some Ordinary Dude on other websites), who previously written It's a Kid's World. His intention after writing that story was to create something more canon-like that felt like an actual extended special episode of the show.
This Fan Fiction includes examples of:
- Action Duo: All of the teams in the quest (who aren't already this trope to begin with) become this, as the size and scale of this year's event has resulted in the challenges being more dynamic than in years past. For example, all of the competitors have to deal with things like laser tag, arm wrestling, rock climbing, actual wrestling, and dodgeball in this story. Even some of the other challenges like the hay maze end up involving ninja's or some other form of action-based element within them.
- Always Someone Better:
- Babs is this to Lynn. She beats her almost effortlessly in the wrestling event halfway through the quest, and she appears to be overpowered and completely unstoppable all the way until near the end of the story. Inverted once it turns out Babs has been using a power vest created by Dr Linnaeus that has enhanced her physical abilities. After she loses her power-up, she and Lynn fight again, and the two are more evenly matched.
- In the past, Babs dominated all the fighters she came up against, until she met her match in Ace, the male champion in the division, who (albeit barely) managed to beat her.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: The Miller Family and Dr Linnaeus are working together, along with Babs Bestie, to win the Astonishing Quest and obtain the winning prize, which would fund their nefarious schemes.
- Big Bad Wannabe: The Stancko's, Hank and Hawk, Chandler, and Taylor's gang all cause trouble for the main characters at one point or another in the story, but none of them can hope to hold a candle to Babs.
- Blood Knight: Lynn, Babs, Hank and Hawk all qualify as this, as they love to resolve matters with their fists and might.
- Boyish Short Hair: Babs Bestie's hair only reaches down to her neck, and she is an incredibly masculine girl.
- Brawn Hilda: Babs is rather beefy for a girl her age, and she's very tomboyish and aggressive. While she's not described as particularly ugly or unattractive, she doesn't seem to be the type of girl too concerned with her attractiveness. If anything, she's more proud of her strength and muscles.
- The Bus Came Back: Several minor characters and one-off's from the series reappear here. Hank and Hawk from "The Loudest Yard" and "Tricked", the Stancko's from "Legends of the Hidden Temple", the bus bullies from "No Bus, No Fuss", Chinah from "Gown and Out", and of course the Miller's and Dr Linnaeus from "Family Bonding" and "Blinded by Science" respectively. Perhaps most notably, Dexter from "Singled Out" reappears as Leni's last minute partner for the quest and actually ends up winning it.
- Competition Freak: Lynn as usual, as well as Babs. But as the former points out to Mayor Davis, most of the people in the quest tune into this way of thinking considering that winning this year's quest involves such a substantial reward. Lola definitely proves to be one of the contestants most affected by the potential of winning so much money.
- Continuity Nod: As this story is designed to fit in the show's canon, there are plenty of these.
- Luna and Sam recount their time from doing the quest in "Racing Hearts" and are shown training to overcome in areas where they stumbled last time (like Luna struggling with rock climbing).
- The alliance of Dr Linnaeus and the Millers refer back to the events of "Blinded by Science" and "Family Bonding" quite frequently when discussing the Loud family and their plans.
- When Margo confronts Lynn about her insecurities in chapter 14, she refers back to several episodes involving the two where Lynn's fragile ego motivated her to do certain things, like her actions in "Hero Today, Gone Tomorrow", "Singled Out", and "Hurl, Interrupted", not to mention the general source of her trauma from "Middle Men". Speaking of Lynn, her inability to compete in the quest itself as a contestant and her uneasy tension with Mayor Davis directly relates back to "Racing Hearts".
- Leni mentioning that she and Lori normally partner up together every year for the quest is another reference to the aforementioned "Racing Hearts".
- Luan and Benny are shown to be good chess players. This is a call-back to "A Pimple Plan" where they were both seen playing quite a competitive chess game with each other.
- Lola's motivation for wanting to win the prize money stems from the fact that she feels she cannot hope to compete with the regional competitors in the pageant game because she lacks the money and resources they have. "Gown and Out" proved this to be the case, as Lola was no match for the likes of Jackie, Claudette, or Chinah, the latter of which appears in this story as a contestant.
- The subplot where Stella, Liam, Rusty, and Zach are antagonised by Taylor, Pablo, and Anderson is basically one big nod to the season five episode "No Bus, No Fuss".
- Speaking of "No Bus, No Fuss", the climax between Babs and the Loud siblings and friends in chapter 17 is almost word-for-word the same as the confrontation scene at the end of that episode where everyone stands up to the trio. The difference being that unlike in that episode, Babs is not intimidated so easily and has a trump card to turn the tables back in her favour, resulting in Lincoln needing to step up and use a more hands-on approach to put her down.
- Expy: Babs is essentially Jiren in terms of her role within the story as the unstoppable force that everyone has to beat, with her backstory also being similar to that of Tai Lung.
- Fiery Redhead: Babs has dyed red hair and she's certainly aggressive enough to fit the trope.
- Heel–Face Turn: Babs finally has a change of heart at the end of the story.
- Hidden Depths: Some characters are shown to have more to them at certain points in the story.
- Leni reveals in chapter 13 that she acknowledges her relative lack of intellect, but is also at least smart enough to know that people view her as an idiot.
- In the same chapter, Dexter reveals he and his family are actually struggling for money and he entered the quest because he desperately needed to win the cash prize.
- To a lesser extent, it is revealed that Lisa's friend Darcy is actually a really good skateboarder in one chapter.
- Lighter and Softer: Compared to the author's previous story, It's a Kid's World which was essentially Game of Thrones with Loud House characters slotted in, The Quest for Glory is more canon-like, feeling a lot more like it could be an extended special or even movie for the show itself. That being said, it still has some pretty brutal fight scenes.
- Meaningful Name: Babs BESTie. She certainly has the competitive streak to match.
- Muscles Are Meaningless: Despite Babs being taller and beefier in stature, Lynn proves to be just as strong and tough as her once Babs loses the advantage of her power suit. In turn, both girls prove to be this compared to the much larger competitors like Hank and Hawk or the Stancko's.
- My God, What Have I Done?:
- Mayor Davis asks herself this after Lynn (who has let her competitive urges get the better of her in previous years and thus has been banned from competing) points out to her that offering such a large cash prize for winning is inevitably going to lead to everyone in town competing fiercely and brutally for victory.
- Terry (Babs Bestie's old fighting mentor) seems to hold this view, as he believes it was his inability to retain her humanity during their years of training that has resulted in her taking a dark path.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: This happens in chapter 10, when Lynn and Babs literally decide to have a no holds barred fight in the ring, where the latter proceeds to completely destroy the former. However, Babs receives a taste of her own medicine much later on in the story, thanks to Lynn's brother Lincoln and his Unstoppable Rage.
- Odd Couple: Leni and Dexter. They are basically just teaming up because nobody else would have them. All of Leni's friends and relatives already have partners, while Dexter had nobody else to partner up with because of his physical ineptitude. They actually end up winning the whole thing in the end.
- Rage Against the Mentor: Babs's confrontation with her former mentor Terry results in this.
- The Rival: Lynn begins to view Babs as this as the story progresses.
- Sequel Hook: At the end of the story Dr. Linnaeus' henchmen break her and the Miller family out of jail, with Jeff Miller saying they are ready to strike back at the Louds.
- Sibling Rivalry: Naturally, a contest that pits all the townsfolk against each other for a large cash prize, and one that also entails all the Loud siblings competing on different teams, is inevitably bound to lead to this. Notable examples include the chess duel between Luan and Lincoln in chapter 8 which Luan wins, and the go-kart battle between Lori and Lola in chapter 11 where both wind up screwing each other over and ending up slightly behind.
- Strong Girl, Smart Guy: The duo of nerdy (at least in appearance) and devious Ryan Miller and the tough bruiser Babs Bestie fits this trope. To a lesser extent, there's also Leni and Dexter. Leni is a Kind Hearted Simpleton but is the more physically capable of the two, while Dexter is more intelligent, but he's physically inept.
- Tomboy: Babs Bestie is this in spades, being a tough and strongly-built bruiser who shares all the same competitive urges, in-your-face attitude tendencies, and aggressive habits as Lynn Loud.
- The Worf Effect:
- Lynn is built up as an insurmountable road block that none of the teams can beat in the wrestling challenge... only to fall spectacularly against Babs Bestie in their inevitable clash, clearly demonstrating the overwhelming might of the latter in the process.
- Hank and Hawk are known as pretty tough bullies, but they ultimately end their involvement in the story around two thirds in during a sequence intended to show Lincoln's strength and fury when he taps into his Unstoppable Rage.
- Underdogs Never Lose: Despite falling behind many times in the competition, Leni and Dexter ultimately prove victorious in the quest.
- Unstoppable Rage:
- Lincoln is revealed to have this in the story. It is revealed that he enters an enraged state whenever he sees one of his loved ones in a perilous situation, and develops hysterical strength that enables him to beat up whoever is responsible. Some antagonists like Hank, Hawk, and even Babs Bestie herself all find this out the hard way.
- To a lesser extent, Lola taps into this in chapter 5 after she is bullied by several other competitors in the dodgeball challenge. She is stopped by Babs before she can get herself disqualified, however.
