Skyrim CTD on Load/New Game... FNIS Error? Something else?

[Adamasin]

So, my Skyrim has decided to poop out on me.

Two nights ago, when I went to log in to Skyrim, I had a slight UI bug causing a $ to appear before the first letter of the words in the menu and on the word Level on load files.
I.E, $New Game, $Continue, $Load, $Credits, $Quit, "... $Level 11...". So I went to the internets to figure out how to fix it. All the forums I went to said to verify integrity of local files. I was wary about doing this, because I have a vague recollection of having to do that before and it didn't work out well. I looked up whether or not it would mess with my mods, The people on reddit, here, steam, etc. (That I could find at least) more or less had a consensus that it couldn't possibly do so.

So I did that. Now I can't open any of my old saves or start a new game, as it results in an immediate CTD. I have done everything I can think of so far--

• running the base Skyrim to let it fix my settings,
• running LOOT to make sure my load order was working,
• carefully looked through my modlist for missing dependencies
  (there was a mod that was mistakenly enabled with a dependency I don't have, but I disabled it and it's still broken)
• Checking FNIS-- this threw up an error, but I'm not sure what it means. "Error 2021 Language file(s) missing in Data\Tools\GenerateFNIS_for_Users\languages OR wrong generator path: E:\Steam\steamapps\common\Skyrim\Data\tools\GenerateFNIS_for_Users"
  

So, does anyone know what that FNIS error means, and if/when that does not fix it, does anyone know what might? 99% sure it's not a load order issue because I had this same load order the last time I played Skyrim on 3/30/2022 (according to my last save file), and I even went so far as to remove the mods I had downloaded then to make sure they hadn't done something somehow since the last time I played.

Please help. I'm trying to avoid a complete restall because of a specific configuration of texture mods I use that I forgot how to replicate... It would destroy a character I've had since 2016.