BarbieIsla

BarbieIsla is the femslash ship between Barbie and Isla from the Barbie fandom.

Canon
Barbie and Isla meet for the first time at the research facility where Emerald, the green Gemstone Dolphin who is Isla's friend, got captured. Isla comes to rescue him, but while doing this, Barbie approaches her and tells her that she shouldn't do that since the dolphin is sick, something that is not true and that the captors said. With the more questions Barbie asks about her, curious and filled with wonder, the more nervous Isla gets because she doesn't want to be caught as a mermaid. Barbie and her introduce themselves and laugh awkwardly with each other when they say the same thing at the same time. And since Isla tells Barbie that she's all on her own, Barbie invites her to join her and her sisters, to which Isla agrees, following her.

Barbie introduces Isla to her sisters and then the two of them, alongside them, go to eat at the buffet. Barbie gets to hear more and more of Isla's fascination with the human world, such as her saying that sandwiches are witches made of sand. And she laughs at her fascinations endearly, calling her "quirky". At night, the two of them go to eat around a bonfire, and Barbie introduces her to her friend Ken, who Isla gets to know as someone working for Marlo, the one who has her friend captured. Barbie and her sisters sing a beautiful song about sisterhood, and Isla watches them happily. And when it's time to go to sleep Isla says she'll be sleeping at the beach. Barbie laughs at her remark, saying she always makes her smile.But then realizes Isla was totally serious. She gets worried about Isla so she invites her to stay over at her room. Something her sisters get happy about since they can have a sleepover. Barbie gives her a new set of pajamas and a toothbrush (that confuses Isla since she doesn't know how to use it). And Isla jumps on the bed, loving the soft sheets and falling asleep immediately. The sleepover ends there, and Barbie softly covers Isla with a blanket.

The next morning, Barbie wakes Isla up with breakfast, and the sandwiches she know loves a lot. And then she invites Isla for a swim, something she's hesitant about at first because she's afraid it could expose her as a mermaid, but that she ends up agreeing to, happily. While the two of them are swimming, three Gemstone Dolphins approach them and start swimming around Isla. One of them moves her necklace around, making her transform into a mermaid underwater. Barbie is shocked to see this at first glance, so Isla tells her to please not freak out. Barbie asks her if she's kidding and starts flooding her with questions about her mermaid experience, showing her wander and enthusiasm. Isla starts feeling extremely comfortable around Barbie, and introduces her Dolphin friends to her. Barbie promises she will not share this with anyone and asks Isla to teach her how to swim like a mermaid, to which she agrees, carrying Barbie to a magical swimming adventure with her.

While they're swimming, Isla discovers a cave, and goes to investigate it with her Dolphin friends to see if it leads to the research facility, leaving Barbie waiting. She comes back telling her there are a lot of confusing passages down there that she doesn't know she can go through. But she also realizes that her Dolphin friends are not with her anymore. They managed to reach the research facility and Marlo took the opportunity to trap them. Barbie and Isla go there to save them, but when they arrive, Ken has forgotten the password to open the gate. Frustrated, Isla says she should've never trusted Barbie and runs away.

Barbie devises an entire plan to free the Dolphins, but she goes to apologize to Isla first. She apologizes and tells Isla that she needs her help with the plan. Isla replies "count me in", and hugs Barbie tenderly. The two of them go back to the research facility, and Isla thanks everyone, but specially Barbie and tells her that although she knows it's two much to ask, she wants them to keep the secret of her being a mermaid, transforming right in front of them and jumping to the water with her Dolphin friends. As one of Barbie's sisters, Skipper, tries to put in the new code, it fails. Isla and the dolphins hide underwater when they see Marlo, who says she changed the code after Skipper hacked her. Marlo sees that the enclosure pool is empty, and Barbie says the dolphins have escaped. Marlo rushes to the helicopter to see if she can spot the dolphins from the air. Isla and the dolphins resurface in the pool and say they hid in an underwater tunnel. Isla thinks it is connected to the cave they found earlier, and they could use it to escape, but the tunnels are confusing.

Barbie says they could use a signal from the other side of the tunnels. This gives Isla the idea to use her necklace. She gives a shell from her necklace to Barbie and says if two merpeople hold a shell, it creates a current of light and color that can be followed underwater, which will lead Isla right to Barbie. Barbie goes to the cave entrance, and the shells make the water glow and create a trail of light. Isla and the dolphins get through the tunnels and get to Barbie. Hugo and Marlo chase Isla and the dolphins using their helicopter. Isla turns her tail into legs and gets on a speedboat with Barbie. The dolphins swim alongside the boat, but Isla says she will have to swim with the dolphins when the water gets shallow. Sad, Barbie tells her that maybe this is goodbye, and that she will miss Isla. She tells Barbie that she will miss her too, and to keep her shell to stay connected with her. Then, she transforms and gets out of the boat to swim underwater.

Once Marlo sees Isla as a mermaid, she wants to capture her instead of the dolphins. So seeing her trapped, Barbie covers herself in seaweed and wears flippers so that her silhouette looks like a mermaid. Marlo and Hugo capture Barbie instead of Isla, so Barbie ends up saving Isla, who tells Barbie's sisters that she will never forget them as she swims to safety with the dolphins.

Later, Skipper shows Barbie some of the photos she took from the trip, and when Barbie sees one with Isla, she zooms in on her face, sadly wondering how she must be doing, since she misses her. Barbie keeps holding her shell underwater in hopes of reuniting with Isla someday. And then, sighing, she sits on the sand beach whispering "I miss you Isla". With this, Isla finally finds Barbie and says she was only able to find her because Barbie kept trying. Isla was able to get closer to finding Barbie each time. Isla thanks Barbie for not giving up on her, and Barbie says she would never give up on her, as they hug in each others' arms.

Fanon
Barbie and Isla is a popular ship within the Barbie fandom. It's a very popular femslash ship as well since many fans of the ship noticed that, just like in many Barbie movies, the two of them shared an incredible chemistry and most of the movie together. Fans of the ship also pointed out things between the two girls that could be interpreted as romantic :
 * As soon as they see each, Barbie has pretty much taking a liking onto her and she immediately invites her to sleep at her house, despite she's basically a stranger that she just met.
 * Barbie finds Isla endearing with all her quirks and barely leaves Isla’s side. She has devoted her whole attention to this girl and to really trying to get to know her and showing her around. She has showed her all the wonders on that resort, making sure Isla is having fun and enjoying her time with Barbie.
 * Isla trusts Barbie. This mermaid has some trust issues going on with humans but as soon as Barbie swept her off her tail, she immediately warmed up to her. Making it more hurtful when she realizes that maybe Barbie wasn’t exactly trustworthy on their "breakup" scene moment.
 * Barbie spends way more time devoted to Isla during the whole movie, than she does with Ken.
 * Barbie and Isla's "break up scene" has a lot of aspects to it that are reminiscent of rom-com break up scenes. It is also followed by a make-up scene shortly after. (Note: Barbie’s top priority was to help Isla so she made a plan to rescue the dolphin, but made sure to give her the task of making things right with Isla).
 * Barbie sacrifices herself for Isla. Barbie gets herself in danger to save Isla as the typical "damsel in distress" trope.
 * Isla gives her this seashell that always leads Barbie to her. Mermaids are pretty unreachable but Isla didn’t want to stay unreachable to a certain human.

Fandom
FAN FICTION

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