I think fannish culture in certain subsets of fandom is overtaking the more progressive corners of that universe pretty rapidly. It was amazing to sixteen-year-old me that Aral was allowed to have been canonically bisexual, omg. Half a lifetime later, I am impatient with the way that I've met all these Barrayarans and the queer ones are Aral, Ges, possibly Byerly, and the most recent Count Vorrutyer. Aral and three Vorrutyers. No hanky code. Though Ivan possibly knows what signals are used to transmit the code although he does not necessarily know how to communicate in it himself. Happily, there's a fic for that.

I still need to do that showcase of finest-kind fic for this canon, because the fic authors are really starting to come into their own.