#charles vane

[muhuhha]

was sketching vane then mind went blank and

now I have a new dnd character I guess.

(there's something under the cut)

a little close up. also I hate drawing clothes 🚒

[redpool]

I can find plenty of polyfics for Jack, Anne, and an OFC, but I want one that is Jack, Anne, Charles and OFC because I fucking love that trio so god damn much.

This is what sucks about being in a dead fandom.

I'm doing another rewatch of Black Sails, and I have gained a new appreciation for the trio.

[221bnassau]

I don't get tired of referencing this meme when it comes to Vane lmao.

[cannibalspicnic]

OK, but Daniel and Armand could teach Charles Vane a thing or two about sneaking up on people during a poignant gay moment.

[the-house-of-auditore-frye]

Vane Girlie Staff Meeting #2

So Balck Flag resynced has dropped... where is the content of this man? Fanfiction?! GIFS?!

[thatbitchwhowritesstuff]

made that thing at 4 am talking to @werewolfwatchhertv thought i’d share it with the class

[diasdelfuego]

s01e08 — VIII. | s04e08 — XXXVI.

[artemideaddams]

Sometimes the “they are gay/this character is gay and in love with this other same-sex character” reading is not incorrect but it is not the ONLY interesting interpretation, and pretending it is flatten the dynamic actually at play- again with JackVane.

Jack’s admiration for Vane and hunger for being recoignized as a proper pirate by him can be read as a crush for his best friend, sure, but it can also be read (and probably that is a) the intent b) the actual more complete reading) as a way to receive praise and validation from a man that he has seen since years ago not only as a friend, captain and often role model but also as the ephitome of a “ proper” masculinity.

A "proper" (strong, self-reliable, physically fit, in a position of leadership in a ship, intimidating to strangers) masculinity that Jack feels he was never fully able to achieve, because he always saw himself as “too weak”, too emotional (which is fun because Vane is also. Way more governed by his feelings and emotions than Jack is overall.) and too reliant on others in combat (especially on Anne, a woman; and on top of that a woman who he himself, probably with the help of Vane himself, trained and taught to fight when she was a young teenager, and who now is more likely to scare enemies than Jack himself is. Very complicate genders dynamics at play!) 

I don’t think Jack's (overstimated by some people) gender performance has a lot to do with that; as gellavonhamster said, Jack slightly dandy style is, more than purely gender non-comforming, a way through which he makes himself similar to the men of a certain class he both deep down desires to belong and despises, because felt he was destined to be part of it or at least close, before his father’s and grandfather’s business was shut down/failed, and he and his family became poor and social outcasts.

Charles Vane’s very different gender performance of masculinity also has to do with class but in opposite direction. He rightfully despise men of richer social class who oppressed and enslaved him and so he rejectes everything about THEIR performance of masculinity (including the dandyness Jack Rakham embraced) to adhere to a performance on masculinity that is purely based on physical strenght (something the higher class doesn’t have, as he himself called it out in season one, because they command others to do jobs and physical labour for them).

And Jack, despite trying to emulate with his style sometimes the type of masculinity of men that Vane would define weak or parasite, actually want approval from the men who upholds the type of masculinity/machism Vane also upholds.

Because Jack wants to protray an image of himself that is smart, well-curated and well-groomed and witty (in a word: educated), but never actually weak or unable to hold his own in combat, or not a real pirate.

It’s a delicate equilibrium that Vane’s approval and proximity allow him to mantain.

He achieve this balance of gender performance (and approval from the personification of type of masculinity) first being his Quartemaester, basically only friend and right-hand man, then by being recoignized by Charles Vane as a peer, a fellow Captain worth of respect.

How masculinity or gender in general is perfomed is an important theme of all Jack, Anne and Charles. Of all Black Sails characters actually, but the Ranger crew members in particular seem to adopt a certain type of machist type of mentality/code that Vane tried (and usually managed) to embodiement in his persona/public image, even if it’s not all that there is to him, and to whom both Anne and Jack theorically couldn’t or seem to not belong, and yet they do. 

This doesn’t deny or completely overshadow a queer reading btw, in fact it can very well mesh with it.

It’s not that I think it’s incorrect to say it’s possible Jack might have thoughts about Charles that are not platonic , it’s just that the sexuality part of the dynamic is not as interesting to me as the gender presentation and wanting validation for it part.