A true point! But yes, I am an active shipper, both for canon and non-canon ships, het and slash and femslash. Equal opportunity shipper here.

Not to stick my nose in a conversation I don't belong, but I'm pretty sure her original fanfic was an AU? Which means Alternate Universe, where you take the characters from the book or movie you like, and spin off an alternate universe where they, perhaps, work in a publishing office. So the names were all Edward and…

I agree with your main definition, but I would argue the "to the exclusion of other possible concerns for that program" point. I ship a lot of different ships on a lot of different shows, and I still care about the plot of the show, character arcs, etc. It's just another aspect of the show I enjoy thinking about.