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- 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, 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 (strong, self-reliable, physically fit, in a position of leadership in a ship, intimidating to strangers) that 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 (overstimated by some people) gender performance has anything to do with that; as gellavonhamster said, Jack slightly dandy style is more something through which he makes himself similar to men of a certain class he both desire 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. 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 did oppress 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 are weak and do others do jobs for them) and is supposed to evock this in every way. And Jack, despite a dandy adhering to or emulating the type of masculinity that Vane would define men or parasite in his style, actually want approval from the men who upholds the type of masculinity/machism Vane also upholds- he wants to appear smart, educated, well-curated and witty, but never actually weak or unable to hold his own in combat. It’s a delicate equilibrium that Vane’s approval- first through being his Quartemaester, only friend and right-hand man, then by being recoignized by Vane as a peer, a fellow Captain worth of respect-and proximity allow him to mantain.
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 in particular seems 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.
