It's partly that, and it's also that I'm super lazy about seeking out fanworks of *any* kind outside of my DW reading list, authors/vidders I already know, and recommendations. And Xena fic just hasn't come up in those contexts. But I will totally look!

I would love to find some Lao Ma/M'Lila fic, but I don't have a lot of hope. I tried once but all I found was Lao Ma/Xena porn.

I wouldn't have realized that epithets (do you mean like slurs? Or something else?) are more common in older fic. Weird.