Duck Lamphier

Montague, affectionately known as "Duck" because of a supposed waddle, is a worker on the North Western Railway and drives the No. 8 Great Western Pannier tank engine.

Appearance

Duck is a large, hairy, and burly man of a round and friendly stature. He has thick patches of hair on his forearms, one complete leg and the other with a wooden prosthetic one, a broad upper chest with a large stomach that drops down.

His hair resembles of the front-side of a Great Western Pannier tank, and is currently in the process of turning grey due to his early middle age. He has thick sideburns covering his jawline. His face strongly resembles to his engine counterpart's face from the television series with visible cheekbones, a large and curved nose, and duck-bill like lips.

He has pecs that appear to be soft with a fair-sized patch of chest hair on them, and his nipples are a pinkish red.

At work, Duck wears a brown cap and an ivory button-up shirt that has rolled up sleeves with a dark-green sweater vest on top. He wears also brown trousers, and a brown shoe for his one complete leg. On colder/wetter days, he wears a green trench coat.

On casual days, he wears a green button-up shirt that is buttoned up to show cleavage to his hairy pecs. He also wears the same brown pants and shoe but with the addition of crimson suspenders.

Biography

Montague Peter Lamphier was born on August 8th, 1917 in the farming Lamphier household in Somerset. He spent most of his early life working on the farm, harvesting crops and producing milk and other dairy products from goats. He and his father, Rudy, also raised livestock such as chickens, sheep, and cows, for other companies to distribute meat. One day while working on the farm, Montague got a bug bite that was considered very infectious. The doctors did not have the proper medicine at the time and they had to amputate the infected leg and replace it with a wooden prosthetic leg. Thus, the rest of his peers would call him Duck due to a supposed waddle from the leg.

At the ages of 15 to 16, Duck became curious about his gender and sexuality, and started to talk about his identity to his mother and father. They were both supporting of Duck's choice and decided to go to Berlin for holiday several times with him. Throughout those times in Germany, Duck would visit the queer-friendly cabarets and safe-spaces to make friends and be part of a nearby community who are like-minded. One of the friends Duck (as well as a first crush) would make was Ludwig Ditzel, a gender-nonconforming cabaret performer who played the role of a sharp-toothed cannibal. Eventually, the holidays in Germany would stop due to an incoming rise of fascism in the country and it was considered unsafe for someone like Duck.

In the Fall of 1935, Duck recently turned 18 years of age and would go looking for a job that was just as hardworking like on the farm. To his luck, he would find a position as Station Pilot for Paddington Station, located in London. Thus, he would move out of the Lamphier farm in Somerset and into an apartment near Paddington. He would make friends with Cecil Fulford, a then-driver for the Mainline of the GWR. Almost a year later, Diesel, Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists were gaining popularity among Duck's peers. Feeling doubtful, Duck soon left Diesel and the fascists to their own devices, which resulted in frequent violent clashes between them and a group of anti-fascists made of Communists, Socialists, Jews, labor unionists, and Anarchists. One of those clashes would take place in Cable Street on October 4th, 1936. Diesel soon vowed to get revenge on Duck and wrote an op-ed spreading rumors that Duck was in league with "Cultural Bolshevists". Duck moved out of London and into Hayes to work as a banker. After bravely stopping a runaway train (that involved a crash at a nearby barbershop) at his and his engine's risk, Duck regained the respect of his peers and Mosley's British Union of Fascists would fall into obscurity.

During World War Two, Duck would move back to his farm in Somerset while his friend Cecil would work for Civil Defense. There at that time, he and the rest of the Lamphier household would give refuge to evacuees from London. Sometimes, the evacuees were offered to help Duck on the farm. After the war, Duck soon returned to Paddington to continue his job as station pilot. In 1948, the Great Western Railway would be nationalized along with other railways to form British Rail. Despite the act that was enforced, Duck remained proud of that heritage.

In the Summer of 1955, Duck would resign his job at Paddington and would apply for a job on the Island of Sodor to take over Percy Cardiff's shunting duties. Duck quickly made friends with Percy and demonstrated himself to be a hard worker as he was throughout his life. Gordon, James, and Henry mistook the work ethic for simplicity and took advantage to try to order Duck about. The three would find their mistake when James' and Henry's (Gordon was an athlete for the Sudrian Deighans/Devils) engines barred by Duck's and Percy's engines from entering the shed at Tidmouth, and locked out by Duck and Percy from entering Tidmouth Pub. Duck as well as Percy, James, and Henry were given a reprimand by the Fat Controller, Sir Charles Topham Hatt, who told them - as Duck put it - that it is his railway and all orders come from him alone.

Duck soon got used to his way of living on the Island of Sodor, and would have very brief relationships with two local women named Alice and Mirabel. In 1958, Cecil would have a new job as a barkeep at Tidmouth. Duck noticed that Cecil was not feeling right after the war, and promised him that he will find help for his scarred friend as soon as possible. Eventually, Duck finds Cecil a psychiatric clinic where he would meet there every two weeks.

When the Scottish Finlay twins, Donald and Douglas, arrived on Sodor in 1959, Duck gave way to let Donald be roommates with him in his rowhouse, and they soon became good friends. After working in the yard for a good five years, Duck was offered to work on the recently opened Little Western Branch Line near his home in Arlesburgh. As Duck worked along the branch line, the Fat Controller built a shed for his engine. One night, Duck talked endlessly about how he enjoyed his new tasks to a sleeping Donald in their room. Donald interrupted Duck by quacking at him and suggesting that he might have laid an egg. Offended, Duck soon started a prank war between him and Donald. At first, Duck sent a white duck into the water tank of Donald's engine. When Donald found the duck in the water tank the next morning, he was astounished but soon found it funny. The duck was friendly towards him and was allowed to ride on the engine's tender. That night, Donald consulted himself on how to pay Duck back. The next morning, Donald went to the bathroom where Duck finished his bath and was brushing his teeth. He carried a prop egg, jokingly claiming that Duck laid the egg in the outhouse the night before. Duck agreed that Donald won the prank war, and settled it by giving Donald a kiss on the lips. Duck then said to Donald that he and Donald can start a relationship together, and they have been a couple ever since.

For some time, Duck had been eyeing on Skiff, a teenager who was sent to the local orphanage as soon as his abusive biological father Sailor John was charged for theft, robbery, child abuse, and piracy. On a romantic bath one night, Duck expressed his idea of adopting Skiff to Donald, in which he said that maybe it would happen. Eventually, Duck and Donald adopted Skiff from the orphanage and took him to their home as their own son. Skiff refers to Donald and Duck as Dad and Pop respectively.

Personality

Duck has his own way and tends to stand no nonsense from anyone who tries to take advantage and order him about; because of this, most of the working class who operate the tank engines (and even non-railway working class people) look up to him. However, Duck never got along with Thomas due to the latter's cheeky shenanigans. He even asserted to Percy that Thomas deserved to be alone in the Smelters factory for teasing him about being scared of a ghost lurking there. Duck's autism spectrum expects things to run like clockwork, and that makes him efficent and loyal to his bosses and peers.

Duck usually is welcoming towards visitors and newcomers, even towards people who may have a different ideology as long as it is not extreme or threatening. He often supports the underdog, sticks up to those he cares for the most, and help others learn and see the error of their ways. Duck, however, occasionally like other working class folk can tease people who are of a higher level (i.e. Gordon, a famed athlete of the Sudrian Deighans).

Trivia

• Duck is bilingual. The other language he speaks is German, since he visited Berlin from time to time as a teen.
• He owns a monocle that he got one Christmas from a cheap cracker. He rarely wears it unless he goes to a formal outing like going to the Ivory Night Club in Knapford or to a casino.
• Duck has several hobbies to keep himself busy from being understimulated. These hobbies include: writing short stories and folk songs, mindful doodling, and decorating the rowhouse whenever something special occurs (e.g. Yule decorations for Christmas, Olympic-style decorations for the Olympics, etc.)
• Duck has Auditory Processing Disorder. This means that he can mask it by pretending to understand and "catch up" whenever he can.
• Because Duck identifies as an autistic nonbinary man, he hates it when others infantilize him simply because he doesn't identify as a man as society defines it (i.e. cisgender man).
• If Sodor, UK's timeline extended to 1997 and celebrities such as Marilyn Manson were to exist, Duck would most likely describe him as someone who reminds him of his German friends in the Weimar era, despite Manson's ethnicity being Polish.
• Duck's voice headcanon is Mel Smith as Father Christmas from Raymond Briggs' Father Christmas.

Gallery

Moodboard (Stamps, blinkies, etc.)

Citations

1. Wikipedia, ig