I love love stories. And I especially love epic love stories. If there’s a team to be had or a ship to declare, I’m in! Below I detail five television couples who I come back to time and time again (and yes they are all from teen soaps) and five relationships from YA that I revisit each and every year. I put them in the order I believe I first encountered them.

For some visual inspiration, check out my Pinterest board: https://pin.it/6EFrAyS

TV ships

Corey and Topanga (Boy Meets World)

If there’s ever a couple that had more of an impact on a generation than Corey and Topanga, I don’t know who it is. We watched these two grow up from shy and awkward twelve-year-olds to high school sweethearts to a married couple. And then we got to see them as parents. Corey and Topanga are relationship goals, and they are absolutely the reason I’m a hopeless romantic.

Liz and Max (Roswell)

I don’t know if there’s another couple in the television universe that I love more. Liz and Max are soulmates. It doesn’t matter that he’s an alien or that they are in high school; these two are in it for the long haul, which is good because in the three seasons the show was on air, Max and Liz were apart more than they were together.

Pacey and Joey (Dawson’s Creek)

I actually wasn’t allowed to watch Dawson’s Creek when it first started airing thanks to a that very wordy and sexualized first season. However, by the time I did tune it, I was immediately Team Pacey. Joey and Pacey fit. They made each other better, and fell in love in a real way that never happened with Dawson and Joey. My best friend and I even road tripped to Wilmington, North Carolina where the show was filmed to stand in front of “The Wall” with our own Ask Me to Stay signs.

Nathan and Haley (One Tree Hill)

There isn’t a better couple than Naley. For nine years, these two were the core of One Tree Hill. Their love was imperfect and messy, but strong and solid and real. I blame them for some of my loftier ideas about love when I was in high school.

Logan and Veronica (Veronica Mars)

First, I must say that for me Season 4 never happened. My Veronica Mars canon ends with the movie, and you can’t change my mind. That said, these two. Enemies to lovers has never been hotter. When bad boy Logan Echolls fell for teenager sleuth Veronica Mars, it was earth-shattering. They had a rough road, but I don’t think there was any other way for them.

Book ships

Clary and Jace (The Mortal Instruments)

Two of my favorite Shadowhunters, Clary and Jace (#clace) are one of my favorite ships. We get to watch them fall in love, fight that love and re-find it over the course of six books. Their story is fraught and tangled, and one I love so much.

Jem and Tessa (The Infernal Devices)

Picking between the Jem and Will is nearly impossible in this Shadowhunters series set in the 19th century, but when it comes down to it I’m a #jessa girl all the way. Everything they go through, the centuries of their love, it’s just epic.

Ethan and Lena (The Caster Chronicles)

Maybe one of the best couples in all the books I’ve read, Ethan and Lena are bound. Watching them fall in love in the first of four books in the Beautiful Creatures is a pure joy. There’s so much at stake and so many reasons they are not meant to be together, and yet their love is stronger than all of it.

Rose and Dimitri (Vampire Academy)

I love Rose and Dimitri. If there are ever two characters in a book series fated to be together and totally and completely perfect for each other it’s #romitri. Another relationship where they fall in love, fight it and come together again over the course of six books, but in a way that breaks your heart to the point you’re not sure you are going to recover.

Laith and Ava (Flames of Time)

The newest addition to my list, Laith and Ava were an unexpected couple that I wasn’t sure I was going to like until I couldn’t bear for them to be separated. Connected by a curse over three hundred years old, these two get an entire book of the Flames of Time trilogy where we get to see them connect and fall in love with each other despite the soul bond.