@Edhelistar
Thanks for your feedback. My question wasn’t so much about getting opinions of shipping in general, but for people who do like ships and whether they like more than one ship involving the same character or prefer OTP’s and why… But I do think I understand what you are saying about preferring canon-ish ships, and I think it’s cool that you are open minded about accepting the ships that other people like too.
Personally I do like to multiship, and I can’t help but feel a little self-conscious about it sometimes. For example, I actively seek out imagery of at least a dozen ships involving Twilight Sparkle, whereas many people only ship Twi with a single character. It’s not that I think that Twilight is a slut, but because she is FiM’s main protagonist I just like imagining what different relationships involving her might look like, in a multi-dimensional sort of way.
Although I have gotten into arguments with shippers who think their ship is canon, when it isn’t…
I think it’s important to realize some folks do indeed take their favorite ships seriously, as they invest a lot in them emotionally. So yeah, while we might snicker a bit at somebody tricking themselves into believing that a particular ship is canon when it is not, I think exercising just a little sensitivity in most of those cases is the right thing to do. Shipping wars are unfortunate, and ultimately unnecessary, because what really matters is what a ship means to an individual, and not so much what it means to anybody else.