It's not shipping if it's the author doing it.

By this I mean: shipping implies speculation regarding the romantic qualities and personality quirks of characters divorced from the canonical events of the story. Characters are hypothetically paired based on their imagined compatibility while ignoring any potential pitfalls or barriers in the form of physical, cultural, geographical, or historical reasons that would prevent such a pairing.

This is not what is happening in Homestuck. If it's canon, it's not shipping.

To claim that the author of any work is indulging in shipping implies either one of two things: either that that the author is purposely ignoring their own intentions for the story, or that

It either implies that there is a

author is intentionally degrading their work

there is a higher work that they are ignoring for the purposes of their story

Furthermore, it also implies that