Age of Aqueerius

Scorpio

We both know you prefer undressing to dressing up, but this Halloween, compromise by dressing sexy. Costume suggestion: Kathy Bates’s cling-wrap dress from Fried Green Tomatoes.

Sagittarius

I know you think you’re honouring your dead relative by dressing in her clothes and covering yourself in blood, but it’s that breed of sensitivity that has cost you your friendships. Go as a sidekick to someone else and see another way. Costume suggestion: the car Tracy Chapman drives.

Capricorn

Find a Sagittarius and make her your costume lackey. Draw more attention to yourself than usual. Costume suggestion: a chandelier.

Aquarius

Are you surprised that I haven’t mentioned Miley Cyrus yet? Me too! Don’t go as her. If you want to go as a Facebook Backlash or Twitter Explosion, go as Jann Arden when she defended Paula Deen.

Pisces

Get your head out of your worries long enough to sew the headpiece for your chainsaw costume. Literally. Time to cut the bullshit, and how better to do that than embody your new mantra. Warning: do not use a real chainsaw.

Aries

Peter Pan, in addition to coining an unfortunate syndrome of gay denial, was a nifty dude. He did a lot of stuff for those kids in Never Never Land all the while fighting and floating and being cool with fairies. I say dress as Tootles — pretend to be the lost boy others see in you already.

Taurus

Everyone’s getting all up in your face to dress as a Spice Girl again. Just because you are braver than they are (and don’t give a shit what others think) doesn’t mean you should pander to their tired suggestions. Return to the costume you’ve been planning all year — a literary character from one of Nobel Prize–winner Alice Munro’s stories.

Gemini

Halloween isn’t your thing until the day of. And by the time you scour the kitchen to find ingredients for homemade blood and powder your face like “corpse Amanda Bynes,” you end up disappointed you didn’t plan ahead.

Cancer

Being a fan of live-action role play (not what you think, non-nerds) we know you’ve acquired a rare new skill to construct your costume this year. Just do your best not to begrudge your friends when they have no clue who Mike Jones is.

Virgo

Classic, safe Virgo. Channel a character you’ve always loved — preferably from your childhood. I would say Nick Carter, but Puff the Magic Dragon also works.

Libra

On one hand, appropriating a cultural figure is a form of flattery; on the other more accurate hand, it’s knocking an icon down to pedestrian levels. So whom, dear Libra, will be cut with the double-edged sword in your embodiment this year?

Leo

Bundle up, you crazy cats! Don’t want your pride and joy to freeze and fall off (nothing spookier than a wizzled kitty). Halloween costume suggestion: Faye Dunaway in any of her Mommie Dearest ensembles — the furrier the better.