Metadede

Metadede is the Slash ship between Meta Knight and King Dedede from the Kirby fandom.

Canon
Starting off with Kirby's Adventure for the NES in 1993, Meta Knight is one of the many bosses who was given a shard of the Star Rod by Dedede, and which, all of the bosses besides Dedede and Nightmare, having been described as his friends in the original NES version, both Dedede and Meta Knight however get their rears handed to them on silver platters by Kirby and Meta Knight doesn't appear again until Kirby's Avalanche, which won't have more said about that, but his true comeback to the franchise being in Kirby Superstar, released in 1996 for the SNES, where in the subgame; The Revenge Of Meta Knight, is literally just Meta Knight snapping, deciding to overthrow Dedede, and Kirby committing mass murder as usual, and the possible death of a certain Waddle Dee, which still breaks hearts to this day, but does show that early on, Dedede and Meta Knight did not have that well of any form of relationship, either platonic, familial, or romantic.

Jumping over to Kirby's Return To Dreamland, both Meta Knight and King Dedede are members of the main 4 and are playable as optional multiplayer, and can also be played as during single player in the Arena and True Arena respectively, noticeably they now have a better relationship with eachother and can at least be considered friends, allies, or just acquaintances with no risks of penguins getting overthrown by angry borbs, and in Kirby Star Allies, both King Dedede and Meta Knight are dream-friends and can be played as in either multiplayer or the Guest Star ???? Star Allies Go mode, and in their Guest Star ???? Star Allies Go picture shows them resting together alongside Bandana Waddle Dee, underneath a tree. The game that however made this ship become as popular as it is, Kirby Fighters 2, in the story mode, has a rather interesting story. Kirby is invited to fight in a tower that Meta Knight and King Dedede had built together, and the 2 are fought together 3 times, as their bond grows stronger alongside the two fighters, culminating in King Dedede and Meta Knight bearing two powerful masks that literally possess them, in an attempt to beat Kirby and his partner of choice, and afterwards, the game LITERALLY says that their bond and strength were both strong enough, and the magical masks weren't even needed as they had such a strong bond that any magical object would basically just not be adding much to them at that point, which means that Kirby's gonna have 2 dads one day, and it's just guaranteed. Not much is added on afterwards in the next game, Kirby And The Forgotten Land, as Dedede and Meta Knight spend almost the entire game split apart from eachother for obvious reasons like Dedede being possessed again and Meta Knight guarding the Waddle Dee town, until the postgame where Dedede takes up residence to recover in Waddle Dee town. Extra lore is included in the ingame Gachapon figurines (thanks hal for turning kirby into a DAMN GACHA)  and there's too much of that to all be said in a page first draft so that'll be added in later updates because nintendo.

Fanon
Due to the entirety of Kirby Fighters 2 portraying Meta Knight and Dedede in a pseudo-'will they or will they not?' sort of relationship, MANY fans latched onto the ship quicker than the sinking of the Titanic back in 1912, lot's of fan portrayals will portray Dedede in a kind caring manner, similar to his portrayal in Kirby And The Forgotten Land, and Meta Knight in a way that almost feels like a combination between the games and the anime, which albeit the fact that it sounds quite odd to do so, but it's kind of how he's portrayed, often, Dedede and Meta Knight are also portrayed as being father figures to both Kirby and Bandana Waddle Dee, treating them as their own children (they kind of already are), which is admittedly pretty decent portrayal, when you remember how fanon in other fandoms can treat ships. So it's already quite obvious that the king and his loyal knight had gotten rather lucky with how the fans treated them. At least it wasn't another Lorax fandom situation.

Fandom
Metadede on Tumblr

Metadede on Twitter

Metadede on Deviantart

Metadede on ao3