Glorbie

Glorbie is the femslash ship between Gloria and Barbie from the Barbie fandom.

Canon
Gloria and her daughter Sasha played with Barbie when she was young. Though as Sasha grew older, the two grew apart and Sasha developed a resentment towards what Barbie dolls represent. When Sasha was about to give away her Barbie, Gloria decided to keep her.

Gloria, feeling lonely from her boring Mattel job and strained relationship with her daughter, starts playing with Barbie again. But the nostalgic act only made her existential dread worse, and Gloria started thinking of things like death and cellulite. These thoughts overflowed to Barbie in her own world, which made her to develop flat feet, cellulite, and her own involuntary thoughts on death. Weird Barbie informed her that in order to fix herself, she would have to go to the real world and resolve the issues with the girl playing with her.

Barbie and Ken travel to the real world, where she remembers distant memories of Sasha and her mother. Meanwhile, Gloria makes drawings of Barbie in her current state and overhears from the CEO that Barbie has made it to the real world. As Gloria picks up Sasha from school, they see Barbie being taken by Mattel employees. Gloria runs after the car to no avail. She drives to the Mattel headquarters, where Barbie is escaping from the Mattel employees. Upon seeing each other, they stare at each other for a bit in a trance. Gloria breaks the moment, urging Barbie to get in the car. While driving away, Gloria explains to Sasha that she started playing with Barbie again. Barbie and Gloria realize that she is the Barbie that Gloria played with. Barbie, thinking back to her first conversation with Sasha, apologizes for making the world worse, but Gloria tells her she inspired her.

The three travel to Barbieland, in which Gloria and Barbie bond over Gloria's own childhood memories with her Barbie. When they arrive, they find that Ken has converted Barbieland into a patriarchy. Barbie is a bit mad at Gloria for being the reason she and Ken came to the real world, which is what inspired Ken to change Barbieland. Gloria replies going through change like this is just life. Barbie lays on the ground in defeat, deciding to give up, so Sasha and Gloria leave disappointed. But Sasha decides that they should go save Barbieland, because Gloria always believed in Barbie.

Gloria finds Barbie at the Weird House, still laying on the floor. Barbie sobs to Gloria, saying that she is not good enough. Gloria comforts her. She starts to go into a rant about the contradictory expectations put on women, saying that she's tired of seeing other women try to live up to these unrealistic expectations. Gloria's speech breaks the Barbies out of their trance, so they set out a plan to distract the Kens while Gloria frees the rest of the Barbies.

For the last phase of their plan, Gloria helps apply makeup to Barbie. Barbie is hesitant to hurt Ken's feelings, but Gloria reminds her of how he hurt her. Barbie laughs, finding herself starting to understand what it’s like being a woman.

After Barbieland is restored, now giving Kens more equal treatment, Barbie decides to be a human in the real world. She and Gloria remain in contact, and the movie ends with Gloria driving Barbie, now "Barbara", to to her first gynecologist appointment.

Quotes
"You're my favorite human!"

- Barbie to Gloria

Fanon
Glorbie started getting popular around a month before the release of the movie. A promotional clip was released in which Barbie and Gloria meet, seemingly gazing at each other with a sense of longing. Though fans knew the more likely explanation was that Gloria played with this Barbie, it didn't stop them from interpreting the gaze romantically. This plus Barbie's evident disinterest in Ken had some convinced and/or hopeful that Barbie would turn out to be a lesbian. Fans joked about out the clear difference between Barbie's enthusiasm levels during her interactions with Ken and Gloria.

It is the most written ship in the Barbie (Movie 2023) tag on AO3, with 90+ works.

Fandom

 * FAN FICTION