same for me
two novembers ago, started watching buffy and the buffyspeak just sucked me in 😀 i love what joss and marty do with language/pop references , and i particularly loved the way one of the characters would finally say something serious, and then immediately make fun of it (my favorite is still the quote by giles ” a vampire in love with a slayer, how poetic….in a maudlin sort of way”, followed closely by angel telling buffy how he wanted to protect her heart, and she says ‘that’s really beautiful…or taken literally, really gross’ )
it’s sad that the memories of the movie kept me from watching the series until it was in syndication
as far as the folklore stuff; the buffy writers mostly make it up as they go along, some ‘factual’ stuff but mostly whatever drives the storyline