Halloween costumes encountered tonight (not in town where I live; down on the midcoast)
the world's friendliest SWAT officer, who kept waving at me for stopping as he crossed the crosswalk
obligatory yet welcome T-rexes
very alert French bulldog (not a costume)
Link w/ spiffy plastic shield & Master Sword
more homemade Link with no spiffy shield but no less spirit
twin ravens
Among Us crewmate/impostor
walking vampire teeth (bottom row only)
dragon mask with homemade coat of gradated autumn leaves (supposedly the Green Man as per a later conversation, but I'm not seeing it)
rainbow Romany girl
homemade Cruella de Vil complete with branded Dalmatian bag
twin parrots
female berserker w/ fur boots
traditional princess w/ impressive pink taffeta meringue-whip skirt
deer bride (? woman in white dress w/ antlers)
little girl steampunk engineer
black & red dragon (not original, but the costume was really well-made; a well-formed fuzzy head, like a stuffed animal, with a warm cape just the right length)
inflatable dragons; more of these than T-rexes
Black Widow
hot dog w/ relish ruffles on sides (overheard: "Don't pull on Mom's mustard!", even though Dad was wearing the costume; this was never explained)
young surgeon (female STEM representation very strong this year)
inflatable...badger? wolverine? it had sharp claws
zombie, and that's not original, but the kid kept yelling "BRAAAAAIIIINS!!" and was impressively committed
either an owl or No-Face from Spirited Away (this was just a mask with a short fuzzy white blanket draped from it and worn on some sort of support seated on top of the head, and while it was extremely lazy, points for originality)
neat looking knight in faux chain mail & a red tabard plus full-face black hood/visor
neat green fairy (Tink? absinthe personification?) with pointed wings lit w/ fairy lights
pharaoh
an adult wearing Pinhead's coat but not anything else Cenobite?
someone with just a literal jack o' lantern on their head
an older girl with elf ears, a crown, and a red cape, black vest, and white shirt; she looked good, but I got the feeling that she was someone specific and I couldn't identify her
another homemade Cruella de Vil with a fur jacket spray-painted red on the back (maybe this happens in the new movie; I don't know)
father in Día de los Muertos makeup & a sombrero + daughter in beautiful black & aqua Mexican-inspired princess dress
a couple Beetlejuices, which is odd, since they were kids who should be way too young to recognize the character; they must just like his style
inflatable BB-8 with old-school Leia (but blonde)
a black-clad superhero whom I thought might be Black Bolt but who had some inverted-triangle symbol with vertical lines on top I didn't recognize and can't look up
twin Scooby-Doos
family of shiny green dragons w/ fabric wings (2 women + child)
another female berserker (w/ skull skirt this time - to balance out all the STEM?)
an ostrich
little twin firemen, parents dressed as a burning building and hydrant, and a stroller doubling as a fire engine (w/ real light-up headlights)
sentient rainbow with neat rainbow gradient light-up cape
another deer bride, what the hell (is this a Midsommar thing?)
guy wearing plastic molded full-head bluebird mask?
businessman w/ head being eaten by shark
something inexplicable: a dad dressed up as a raccoon with a daughter dressed in gray and a sandwich board saying "ROCK"? ????
Eli Wallach from A Fistful of Dollars (this was a kid)
glitter shark
female lineworker
Chica from Five Nights at Freddy's (FNaF costumes were all over a few years ago; fairly unusual now)
tons and tons of neon light-up LED Dead by Daylight Legion-like masks with X-ed-out eyes and sewn-up mouths; it couldn't have been Legion, because they were so popular - there were literally dozens - but they looked neat
inflatable rainbow unicorn
a flamingo
either just Zorro with a long, full beard or practicing Orthodox Zorro
an older kid in a black robe holding just like a hobbyhorse unicorn head in front of him; I don't know if this was meant to communicate that he had beheaded the unicorn - the message was unclear
evil Ralphie from A Christmas Story in his rabbit jammies w/ a bloody baseball bat
Slipknot-loving unicorn in band T-shirt (as this unicorn passed, a kid called out: "there are so many unicorns!")
man with just a literal tree branch tied with rope to his back
