Other than Frigga, I would have to say most ships would be earlier in his lifetime the way I’ve conceptualised Odin. There was a torrid young romance between Odin and Gridr, their arguments nearly as well-known as their affection, but in the end their passionate arguments gave way to petty squabbling, both of them developing into different people who no longer held the same core connection as they might have felt previously.
Their relationship was well known enough among the Aesir that when Gridr later married and had her son Vidar, some claimed she had played her husband false and that Odin had truly sired her son.
☑ - A fact about the character
Odin never expected to be king and felt woefully unprepared when the title fell to him after the passing of his brothers. To this day, due to their shared consciousness, Odin can sense the resentment of his eldest brother Vili and the cool practicality and “I told you so’s” of Ve. His sense of justice sometimes fluctuates according to the strength of either brother and his own confidence. While most of the time his brothers aid and strengthen his position as king, at other times they serve to fuel his sense of inadequacy.
"Well, this is the sorriest excuse for a stronghold I've ever seen," Karnilla looked on the scene disparagingly.
What appeared to be a vacant parking lot splayed out before them, bare but for the faded paint lines segmenting the surface and the flickering streetlamps in need of repair. At the edge of it, a squat, fat cube of a building sat, checkered with windows, many of which sawed off their panes halfway across in jagged, broken patterns, letting the night breeze whistle slightly as it blew inside. The door seemed sealed enough, though it appeared to be so by nature of being painted shut rather than by any sort of lock.
"No wonder they needed alternative means to subdue Balder," she sneered. "Without their toxins he would have taken down the decrepit thing with a sneeze."
Frozen rain made soft tapping sounds on top of the armored truck as it rocked down the uneven dirt road. Ivan's arm was firm and warm around her, and even though she had never felt so safe Natalia was crying silently into his coat.
«I don't want to go,» she whimpered.
«I know, Natashenka,» replied Ivan. «But this is my duty. You're too little to live on your own and these people will take good care of you. You will learn how to protect yourself, how to provide for a family when you're grown, and how to best serve our nation. There will be other girls like you! Wouldn't you like to have other girls to play with?»
She thought about it long and hard, biting on her lower lip, before nodding. It would be nice. The house she and Ivan shared was small and drafty, and far away from the village. Ivan didn't like people. He already promised that the Red Room would be big and warm and full of people to talk to her, and if Natalia weren't so scared she would be excited.
«Are you going to be killed in the war?» she asked. «Because Ivanka Rasikova's papa was killed in the war. A bomb blew his legs off and then he died.»
He kissed her forehead. «I promise you, I will try not to be killed.»
The truck rumbled to a stop, and Natalia climbed out to look at the large black building peering down at them from the lakeside. The lake was pretty. Maybe when it was warm she would go swimming with the other girls.
Immediately a severely angular woman had Natalia by the shoulder. «Say goodbye to your papa,» she ordered.
Natalia started to cry again. «I-I don't want you t-to go!» she wailed. Ivan hadn't even gotten out of the truck. He put his boots on the dirt, leaned forward, and held out his arms for Natalia to rush into.
«Be a good girl and I'll be back before you know it,» he said hoarsely. Natalia would think he was falling ill for years until she realized he was fighting tears. The angular woman took Natalia's hand and pulled her away from the truck so it could leave. «Will you be a good girl?»
She nodded and tried to call out, «I will,» but her voice broke and failed.
The truck started to drive away and she panicked. Ivan hadn't heard her and he needed to hear her! Natalia yanked her hand free and started running after the truck. Frozen rain landed on her eyelashes, stuck in her hair, blocked her throat even as she called out, «I will! I'll be good, Ivan! I promise!»
He waved goodbye from the truck window.
The moment the armored vehicle was gone hands were seizing the wailing child and dragging her toward the facility. She couldn't stop crying, couldn't catch her breath, and couldn't see through her tears.
The severe woman slapped her. «Stop crying. Tears are for children and you are a woman of the Red Room. Your training starts now.»
I wonder if this is even a fair question with you being the one to ask it, but ALL THE ODIN/FRIGGA ALL THE TIME. Young, old, dead, whatever. OTP into eternity.✗ - A ship I can’t stand
Odin/Laufey. Yes, I've seen it. Yes, the imperialism overtones and rape imagery depicted in a lot of the fanart that shows up in the Odin tag without nsfw warnings disturbs me. Yes, I have several terms for it blacklisted. It is still a major reason I avoid the Odin tag.☑ - A fact about the character
I'm not sure if this is asking for canon facts or headcanon 'facts,' so have a little of both:
Canon: Simonson's Odin was the youngest of the trio of brothers who rode together on adventures and fought with such unity that they could even become one being when need called for it. Myth sources have him as the eldest and with very little told of Vili or Ve. Fear Itself toyed around with this and made him second eldest, next to Cul, who was the embodiment of the Midgard Serpent, and which story arc basically had Vili and Ve stand there as bodies rather than characters. I prefer Simonson--giving Odin brothers with agency and seeing his interaction with them really helps to round out his character. It also provides an out for his actions once they've combined after the battle with Surtur, as his psyche is a constant struggle for control with two other very distinct consciousnesses. Finally, it reiterates patterns of three within the line, and provides very nice counterpoints to Thor, Balder, and Loki.
Headcanon: Odin has a very kinaesthetic learning style. While his initial distaste for pure theory and book-learning may have tempered with age (and several years of convincing from a certain wife), he still feels he retains more and understands things better when he actually gets up and does them himself. This is not to say he is incapable of learning by pure explanation alone, but simply that he prefers direct application of technique rather than the abstract.
✾ - Why I chose my character
It had a lot to do with how I saw Odin presented in others' RPs as a device rather than a character, and generally without having an RPer for Odin to be able to defend the guy's position. It also has several things to do with my own family dynamic, in which several poor decisions in parenting do not necessarily condemn someone to being a terrible person. Marvel comics, particularly recently, has had a hard-on for hating dads and writing them as monsters when they fail to live up to expectations or make mistakes--you know, like any character would in any other given situation--and a lot of fandom takes this to even further extremes. There's a distinct polarisation of parental figures, I've found. It is exceedingly gendered, and both sides of it are incredibly limiting. This falls in with the perpetuation of Frigga as "perfect nurturing always supportive mother figure who was always there when bad-dad-Odin refused to be"--a common theme I hate equally as much as the sarcastic "Odin's A+ parenting" meme/tag/whathaveyou. It reinforces 1. the sexist idea that women are naturally better caregivers; 2. that once a character becomes a parent his or her stories cease to be individualised and are completely overshadowed by the parental role; 3. the overused and frankly lazy-ass trope of "my dad was a jerk so I did/do bad things." In addition to attempting to negate responsibility for characters' actions, this pattern sets impossible standards for characterisation of parents and punishes them mercilessly when they inevitably cannot live up to them. If they can, they cease to be individual characters in their own right and simply fill the slot of "perfect mother" (and very, very rarely, "perfect father"), setting them up perfectly to be fridged.
Anyway, tl:dr--Odin is a better character than what a lot of fandom and several writers give him credit for and can be used to tell much more interesting stories than I have seen. So I figured I'd write those stories.
Natasha's hands hovered over the wounds tearing apart the goddess' flesh, shaking. Her eyes were wide and bloodshot. "I--I don't know what to do," she admitted. Her voice was flat, almost dead with shock.
