Love Ain't Easy, It's Ezzy

Love Ain't Easy, It's Ezzy follows the adventures of Izzy and Ezekiel after Izzy gets kicked off of TDA. As the story progresses, the two start to become closer, and while it is mostly Izzy helping Ezekiel adapt and improve in the real world, eventually he is there to help her too. It also includes other characters that didn't make it into the season, with their own relationships, problems, and issues.

It is also regarded as one of the best Shipping fics that Kobold has made.

This story provides examples of:
"Izzy: Who the fuck are you to judge my boyfriend?"
 * Alternate Continuity: This fic gives us an idea of what might have happened if nothing came of Courtney's gripes about not being in the second season and how far Justin's manipulations could take him in the show without Courtney suing her way on.
 * Berserk Button: Izzy doesn't have a big problem with people badmouthing her, or even them calling her "Izzy" instead of "E-Scope" as the story goes on, but Duncan, Courtney, and Eva find out first hand what happens when you insult Zeke around her.

"Izzy: "This coming from the girl, who acts so professional and by the rules and expects everyone to do the same... and yet you're shagging a criminal!""
 * Biggus Dickus: Duncan. Well, according to Izzy, anyway.
 * Chivalrous Pervert: Owen. He really does mean well, and Izzy is the one goading him on.
 * Cluster F Bomb: Izzy drops the F Bomb a few times throughout the story.
 * Dark and Troubled Past: has one.
 * Freudian Excuse: Duncan has one for being harsh towards Bridgette and her relationship with Geoff and voting her off both seasons. It's one that's so deep-seated even he wasn't consciously aware of it until Izzy deduced it: It turns out he used to have a girlfriend back in his hometown. She resembled Bridgette down to her hair color, ponytail, and attitude. She called the police on him and made a crime he committed out to be much worse than it actually was. Right after he was thrown in jail, she started dating his best friend.
 * Hypocrite: Courtney tries to call out Izzy for dating a supposed misogynist in Ezekiel, only for Izzy to come back with this:

"Harold: "Looks like Sephiroth just revealed the evil behind his pretty face.""
 * Izzy calls out Eva as well when the fitness girl makes fun of seeing Izzy and Ezekiel being intimate in the hot tub one night, while she had already been involved in a secret "never-ending sex romp" with Noah, which Izzy knew about from the start, but had the good grace not to tell anyone (until said moment when Eva crossed the line with her.)
 * Insecure Love Interest: Eva and Izzy. For Eva, her insecurity stems from the worry of Noah's family criticizing him because he's dating someone who's not "a college person", in her own words. For Izzy, it's the fear that once she tells Zeke about what her family's really like and how they view her, he'll feel the same way and reject her. Both are reassured by their respective boyfriends that this will never be the case.
 * Jerkass: Chris, natch.
 * Leeroy Jenkins: Izzy yells out the "classic" battle-cry when she attacks a couple rude customers, one of whom hit Ezekiel.
 * Morality Chain: DJ for Heather. Partially averted in the sense that she still makes fun of the others, but reins in her feelings and notions when DJ asks her to. It's a slow, but steady process from how she was on TDA.
 * Oh Crap: In the final three of TDA, Justin won the "natural disaster" film challenge, got to choose who to eliminate, and didn't hesitate to pick Beth, who he'd been stringing along the entire contest. Cue Chris dropping a twist that the person who came in second, Beth, actually gets to make the choice of who is gone... Harold says it best, in his own nerdy way:


 * Odd Friendship: Bridgette started off really disliking Ezekiel, but ends up being one of his closest friends throughout the story.
 * Pair the Spares: Lampshaded and discussed by Katie and Tyler near the end of the story, believing that 11 boys and 11 girls were brought on the show with the hope that they'd all hook-up with someone else on the show. Katie decides to play it straight and asks Tyler to "take a chance on her" and Tyler figures he's "always willing to give someone a chance."
 * Peeping Tom: Izzy spies on couples, and one time films them. Ezekiel makes her delete the tape.
 * Pet the Dog: Played seemingly straight from Heather to Beth during the "Last Man Standing" movie challenge, telling the farm girl about Justin using her because Heather wants Justin to be exposed for his manipulations and voted off. Subverted hard when the second reason for Heather telling Beth this is because she loves seeing her suffer and thinking she deserves it for being a "wannabe."
 * Running Gag: Zeke and Izzy sneaking onto the TDA set for various reasons, including looking for Izzy's friend "Snakey" and being flung onto the set by ferris wheel. The twist on the end of this gag is that it actually gets both of them back on the show as contestants. Didn't sit too well with Courtney, though...
 * Sanity Slippage: Tyler really doesn't take it well when and even worse when
 * Took a Level In Jerkass: Justin, especially when he interacts with or talks about Beth and Izzy during TDA. He redeems himself by the last chapter, Izzy and Zeke's wedding, by realizing what he had done, apologized to Beth over the next season of Total Drama, and then courting her for real.
 * Wacky Marriage Proposal: didn't mean for it to be, but his friend Tyler has a way of accidentally breaking things.
 * found it very funny until she found it that
 * What Could Have Been: Ezekiel and Izzy's waitress, Erika, was an original character idea Kobold was going to use for Total Drama Battlegrounds, as a nature-loving environmentalist, but abandoned the idea when it felt too close to Bridgette, and wrote her here instead.
 * What Could Have Been: Ezekiel and Izzy's waitress, Erika, was an original character idea Kobold was going to use for Total Drama Battlegrounds, as a nature-loving environmentalist, but abandoned the idea when it felt too close to Bridgette, and wrote her here instead.