Captain Westland Flintjaw and Lady Ashley Littlehouse
Captain Westland Flintjaw is a pirate. His wife began her life as a sophisticated member of royalty, but took to the pirate's life after being captured by Flintjaw. That's the basic story that we've woven for these characters.
This all got started innocently enough. I have a habit of taking brief afternoon naps, for which Ashley coined the terms “Kit-nap” and “Kitnapping” and then wove a tale of pirate mischief around that. If she takes a nap with me, which she often does, she described herself as having been "kitnapped." It's cute, and it brought to mind the various ways in which one might actually be spirited away againt one's will. Pirates seemed a likely choice, and the story flowed from there.
A pirate name was needed for myself, so I ultimately became Captain Westland Flintjaw - "Westland" was inspired by the name of a nostalgic shopping mall from my youth in Michigan, and Ashley thought that "Flintjaw" was an apt description of my actual appearance as well as an fitting pirate name. Then I came up with art-related names for my ship - “The Brush with Death” - and for my trusty parrot, “Vermeer” (Johannes Vermeer was a famous painter from centuries ago). Ashley became Lady Ashley Littlehouse, Duchess of Winston-on-Salem, England. The last name is a fabrication chosen because “Little House on the Prairie” is her favorite show - and she’s originally from Winston-Salem, NC.
Properly attired as pirates, we conducted a photoshoot at a riverside public park in Asheville around Halloween time in 2022. Ashley used a remote to operate her camera during these poses, and then applied her generous Photoshop know-how to produce the results seen here, with a appropriate backdrop inserted behind us.
Our goal was to create a spoof of romance-novel covers, of the sort that are stereotypically melodramatic and frankly ridiculous in their portrayal of lovestruck couples. If you dig into this, as we did, you’ll find that pirates are a common theme among those publications.
I think that our end result here is perfectly hilarious. Above all, the fake parrot just destroys me.
Anyhow, according to the story that we developed, Lady Ashley was kitnapped by myself following the pillaging of a ship, but was not offered for ransom, being regarded as too valuable to part with. She ultimately found the pirate’s life to be to her liking, so stayed on willingly as a member of the crew and became as feared a pirate as any to be encountered on the high seas.
But she became best known for her personal brand of cosmetics, including foundation, rouge and mascara manufactured from the burned and pulverized bones of her enemies; these products were widely traded among the pirate community under the brand-name “Ashes to Lashes,” and contributed as much to her wealth as the ill-gotten gains of pirate treasure.
Who knew there were so many female pirates? But there were, I assure you - and none were more renowned than Lady Ashley, otherwise known as “Lady Ash” due to her fondness for burning and pulverizing the bones of her defeated foes.
As is true of many parrots, our bird Vermeer is skilled in the voicing of human words, although most of his word choices are highly questionable - his profane utterances are a source of perpetual entertainment for my pirate crew, but I can’t take the bird anywhere within earshot of polite company. Thankfully, I rarely find myself in such company.
The attached letter from myself to her father details the early events of her startling adoption of our way of life…
To: Prince Raymond-Scott Littlehouse
Winston-on-Salem, England
October 31st, 1768
Honorable Sir,
This letter is to inform you that we have your daughter, Lady Ashley Littlehouse, Duchess of Winston-on-Salem.
I, Westland Flintjaw, captain of the feared pirating vessel The Brush with Death, took Lady Ashley into my custody following our capture of the HMS Coventry off the coast of Barbados, on which ship your daughter was found to be a passenger.
Ordinarily, I would be writing to demand a ransom for a captive of such value to a royal family. However, I’ve found the young lady to be too fine a treasure to part with for any amount of money, and she has warmed to the prospect of becoming a pirate’s wife. Therefore, no ransom is being asked, and none shall be accepted under any circumstances.
We pirates tend to be short on courtesy, but your daughter has petitioned me to send this notice to you, to relieve you of any anxiety regarding the prospect that she might have been killed. Rest assured, she is alive and well. Any attempt to recover her would be futile, however - as you well know, we are quite adept at evading capture, and the lady does not wish to be rescued, in any case. But she sends her love.
Sincerely,
Captain Westland Flintjaw