Warning: Take this article with a grain of salt. The hallway was deserted when I entered it. I’m sure of it. Well, fairly sure, anyway. Thursday afternoons at Dragon Con, I’m still relatively lucid. But I wasn’t alone. There it was, big as life—actually, bigger than life—a massive yellow doomslug!
Uncertain what to do… and trying to recall what doomslugs eat (funny how my mind goes blank when I need it most), I lifted my con weapon of choice and asked if I could take its picture. Its gorgeous blue spikes wriggled in what I hoped was delight, and it kept smiling. Good. Um… doomslugs don’t have faces, do they? What does it mean if they smile? Those spikes look awfully pointy…
Lucky for me, this doomslug is as adorable as it looks. The huge yellow-and-blue alien modeled after Brandon Sanderson’s Skyward series is the creation of husband-and-wife team Megan Garner and Taylor Pope. They began making yard inflatables during COVID-19 and started their own company, Fernside Dragons, to showcase their creations. Now their yard inflatables are also costumes. They’ve made eight different ones, including the purple inflatable Dragon Con dragon from last year’s masquerade. They will be debuting a special costume this year.
If doomslug appears near you, please don’t a-salt it.
