The Owl House Season 2 is officially on hiatus, and a release date for the second half remains a mystery. Don’t worry, we can all get through this together, even if the wait for Luz Noceda’s story to continue seems almost insurmountable. You can binge the show again on Disney+, or immerse yourself in fanfiction, but if you’re looking for something fresh to give you that Owl House feeling, check out these shows, games, books, and things instead.
I’ve been looking for something to fill the void these past couple of weeks, and wanted to share a handful of things worth checking out if you’re a fan of The Owl House, and I’ve made sure they span a number of accessible mediums and are extra gay for those looking for something to fill the Lumity shaped hole in their hearts.
Related: Ricky Cometa On The Production, Art, And Impact Of The Owl House
She-Ra and The Princesses Of Power
A large amount of The Owl House fandom seemed to have originally transitioned over from the huge audience garnered by She-Ra and The Princesses of Power, a reboot of the classic property produced for Netflix under the creative talent of Noelle Stevenson. It’s fun, imaginative, and manages to tell a compelling story with a number of queer characters and themes that are also prevalent in Disney’s groundbreaking show.
My social media timeline is still swarmed by fanart of Catra and Adora, with fans regularly organising campaigns for additional content in the show’s universe whether it comes in the form of a feature film or more episodes. If you haven’t seen She-Ra and want to invest in a show with an active fanbase, I can’t recommend it enough.
Amphibia
Amphibia is airing alongside The Owl House, with its third season set to begin later this year on Disney Channel. Much like Dana Terrace’s show, it follows a young girl who finds herself transported to a foreign fantasy world where she establishes a home away from home, makes new friends, and strives to reunite with everything she happened to leave behind.
While the first season is filled with wacky hijinks, it soon evolves into something filled with emotionally compelling characters and excellent world building that is so easy to immerse yourself in. Brenda Song’s leading performance as Anne Boonchuy gives the show a poignant heart that beats loudly and proudly. The second season just arrived on Disney’s streaming service, so there’s no better time to catch up before October.
Kipo And The Age of Wonderbeasts
Yet another Netflix original, Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts hasn’t received nearly enough attention, despite a wonderfully unique setting and diverse sense of style that few shows manage to match. Taking place in the 23rd Century, the show follows a young girl called Kipo as she emerges from her underground home into a world populated by oversized talking insects and animals who have claimed the planet as their own.
She’s an outsider, so must work together with a small group of new friends to survive and find her way back home. Kipo has a delightfully modern aesthetic that views the apocalypse as something awash with colour and style, complimented by a soundtrack filled with funky beats and expressive tones that cement this show as something truly unique. It’s a shame it didn’t attract a larger audience, but with The Owl House on hiatus, there’s no better time to check it out.
Bloom Into You
We’re leaving Western animation behind for a quick spell to recommend a 12 episode anime that’s a heartwarming journey of queer discovery. Yuu Koito is a high schooler who has never understood the concept of falling in love, turning down confessions and never finding an opportunity to explore her identity in a world that always seems to be passing her by.
That is, until she meets Touko Nanami, a girl who immediately falls for our heroine and is determined to become the object of her affection. While this sounds like your typical love story, Bloom Into You evolves into a profound exploration of familial grief, self acceptance, and a willingness to define yourself as something that goes beyond expectant labels. It’s short, sweet, and one of the more refreshing anime romances in recent memory.
If Found…
If Found… is a beautiful visual novel of queer exploration set amidst a small Irish village in 1993. One character is an astronaut trying to prevent the world from being destroyed by a black hole, while the second is a young transgender girl called Kasio. Both of them have fascinating perspectives, and the narrative manages to pull you in so many unexpected directions.
While these two concepts might seem completely unrelated at first, they harbour a metaphorical connection that is revealed through excellent dialogue and a gorgeous aesthetic that shines whether you’re playing on mobile, console, or PC. If you’re after a short, sweet, and memorable little game, you can’t do much better than this.
The Girl From The Sea
The latest graphic novel from Molly Knox Ostertag (who also wrote some of The Owl House’s gayest episodes) is a lovely tale of young love between an anxious teenage girl and a selkie who has spent her life living beneath the sea. With a kiss occurring in the first few pages, much of the story follows the two girls exploring their relationship and how they can make it work in a society that might not always be willing to accept them.
Known for The Witch Boy trilogy of novels, Ostertag has produced a cutesy story that is fun, relatable and is willing to paint the queer experience as the mess it oftentimes can be, and how that disarray is worth embracing since everyone is different and special in their own way.
Hilda
Hilda is another show that follows a young girl in a fantasy world filled with all manner of strange and fantastical creatures, although this one is a little more relaxed. Hilda is a young girl living in the town of Trollberg, a city walled off from the outside world to protect itself from giants. Our heroine is a good friend of these monsters, often venturing outside to talk with elves, giants, and other things without any semblance of fear.
Two seasons are currently available on Netflix, with each episode feeling like a warm blanket of cozy stories and warm characters who simply want to be happy and help those around them. The wider narrative isn’t especially compelling, but you aren’t signing up to Hilda for dramatic stakes or excessive tension, so just sit back and enjoy this show for what it’s trying to be.
Sayonara Wild Hearts
This game is brief, stylish, and packed with so much heart and style that it will stick with you long after the credits have rolled. You play as a young woman with a broken heart, and she copes with this by running, skating, flying, and driving through a sequence of spectacular levels while being accompanied by a phenomenal soundtrack.
The best part about Sayonara Wild Hearts is how malleable its core message is. You are simply striving towards a personal sense of worth and acceptance, and the player can transplant that core ethos onto their own personal struggles of sexuality, identity, or anything else that might be holding them down in life. It can be blown through like a therapy session, and offers enough nuanced replayability and challenge that you’ll want to return to it time and time again.