What Are The Common Romance Themes In Dr Blake Fanfiction?

Honestly? I find most of the Lucien/Jean stuff a bit too safe. Where’s the weird, angsty stuff? I stumbled on a few fics a while back that explored a romance between Lucien and Charlie Davis, built on this idea of Charlie looking up to him as a mentor and that blurring into something else. It was messy and probably OOC, but fascinating in a trainwreck way. More common, though, are the ‘fix-it’ fics for Jean and Lucien after a big argument in canon, or AUs where they meet under completely different circumstances—like if Jean was a nurse in the war and Lucien was her patient. The post-canon married life fics are cozy but can be boring if there’s no conflict. I prefer the ones where their pasts still haunt them, like Lucien’s guilt over Li or Jean’s first marriage, and they have to work through it together. That’s the good stuff.

I’ve read a lot of 'The Blake Mysteries' fic over the years, and the romance themes I notice most orbit around the professional and emotional tension between Lucien and Jean, long before the show resolved it. There’s a huge amount of stories that explore a 'what if' scenario where Lucien returns from his trip and they actually confront their feelings sooner, or the whole Hong Kong situation is handled differently. The slow-burn is a massive draw—people love writing and reading about the tiny, charged moments in the station house, the lingering looks over a case file. Another common thread is the 'healing' romance, where one of them is hurt or recovering, and the other provides quiet, steadfast care. It’s less about grand gestures and more about making tea, or a hand on a shoulder during a tough moment. You see a lot of fics that fill in the gaps between episodes, imagining the quiet evenings at Ballarat where the professional facade finally drops.

There’s also a smaller but steady stream of fics that pair Lucien with other characters, like Rose Anderson or even Matthew Lawson, though those are definitely niche. For Matthew, it’s often an enemies-to-allies-to-lovers arc built on mutual respect and shared grief. With Rose, it’s usually about a different kind of future, one that’s less settled but more adventurous. But the Jean/Lucien dynamic is the absolute core—it’s the foundation of probably 80% of the romance fics in the fandom. The appeal is in the maturity of it, I think; these are adults with pasts and regrets, not teenagers, so the romance feels earned.

My reading’s been all about the found family aspect doubling as a romance framework. So many stories use the house on Mallee Street as a character itself, with Jean, Lucien, and Mattie forming this little unit. The romance grows naturally from that shared domesticity—cooking meals together, worrying over Mattie’s studies, dealing with a leaky roof. It’s a very specific, comforting kind of theme. I’ve also seen several where Jean’s professional competence is a central romantic point; Lucien falling for her because she’s brilliant at her job, not in spite of it. There’s a great one where she helps solve a case he’s stuck on, and his admiration turns into something deeper. It sidesteps the ‘damsel in distress’ trope completely, which is refreshing for a period piece. The themes are often about partnership in the truest sense, two people who are already a team realizing they’re also in love.

The overwhelming theme is the slow-burn between Jean and Lucien. It’s all about unresolved tension, suppressed feelings, and the sheer politeness of it all finally breaking. Lots of fics focus on small physical touches—a hand brush, adjusting a tie—as major plot points. The other big one is ‘second chances at love,’ given their ages and past tragedies. It’s less fiery passion and more about quiet, deep connection, which is why I keep coming back to it.