LeastDegenAzuraEnjoyer

So I have an issue where Standalone Follower Mods have their face bloated. I cannot figure out why. The mods themselves are not broken from source: I have had them working just fine before. The mod authors cannot help me as there is nothing wrong with those mods. But sometimes, some modded Followers, and only modded, standalone followers, will have their face not BLACK, but BLOATED. It has so far affected Nords, Bretons and Chimer Elf Race (modded, Miri follower). It seems to only affect women. Their faces get rounded and some of the textures start to break. In Charlotte's case she also gained blue warpaint for some reason. I have not made any patches for these characters since they are standalone, and dont require any. They have no overwritten loose files in MO2 that I can see, though, I am not good at reading the Data tab in the right side panel, and am not sure how to look for clues there other than reading the text on screen like its a book. The characters speak, animate, sandbox, combat, and have dialogue just fine. I can paste new faces on them using the mod Proteus for a quick fix, but am looking for a long term solution which retains the original likenesses. What on Earth could be causing this? I beg you. Ive been trying to fix this for months. I have 3000+ mods installed so "uncheck mods until it goes away" is going to take me 10000 years of game restarts to test and just isnt feasible. I tried using EasyNPC and it has so many errors I cant figure it out. I tried forwarding their faces with the FaceFixer Synthesis patcher, and it had no effect (they are not using face replacers, again, they are standalone). Load order doesnt seem to matter. I tried the versions of each follower which required the author's asset pack if available (rather than fully standalone) with the requirement and it has the same result. I really dont know what else to try other than "throw it all in the bin and start over", forfeiting uncountable hours. If anyone has any specific high level info on what asset or property of the game is breaking here, I would love any indication as to what to try next. Otherwise Ill just uncheck the offending followers and move on.

So this Bards College paid mod just dropped. It looks pretty cool actually. Maybe I havnt tried the right free mods, but the Bards definitely needed some love IMO. It doesnt look "throw out 3 years of setting up custom things" levels of cool tho. But for 10 bucks I think I would consider it, on the right day. Im an AE user with CC content installed, then downgraded, with BEES support. AFAIK, this new Creation should be compatible to drop in my load order and play, technically. But I literally cannot get it, even if I wanted to pay for it. Would be nice if there was some option for hardcore modders to "top up" after being highly customized. Like if Nexus had an official portal for Bethesda and official creators, or if MO2/Vortex could login to Bethesda.net, verify licensing and give the OK to get the plugin even if your downgraded, or what have you. I think it would encourage more integration and derivative works on Creations. Like why would any of the shout/perk/animation/NPC modders bother upgrading this Creation's stuff if it isnt easily accessible outside of a separate vanilla install along side your main game? Just seems silly to me. Or maybe Im way off.