So I finally bought Skyrim some months ago, only to find I allowed a mod I wasn't happy with to bake in on my first playthrough, and my laptop to die.

Fast forward another few months, I got a new laptop, and started a new playthrough with a very light modlist that I only loaded after exiting the tutorial vanilla, and I still get blackface everywhere. What's going on? The NPC's can't have been generated yet, and there are no conflicts indicated in the mod manager. This is my load, from lowest priority to highest:

[olist]
[*]Mod Organiser II
[*]Achievement Mods Enabler
[*]SMIM
[*]Vanilla Hair Remake (no conflict indicated, and tried both with and without)
[*]Vanilla Hair Remake optional NPC's (no conflict indicated, and tried both with and without)
[*]Real Mountains 1k
[*]Cathedral Water Overhaul
[*]Azurite Weathers II
[*]LeanWolf's Better-Shaped Weapons SE
[*]Bijin Wives SE (blackface result, and no alteration of model. Tried AIO as well, with same result)
[*]Bijin NPC's SE (blackface result, and no alteration of model. Tried AIO as well, with same result)
[*]Bijin Warmaidens SE (blackface result, and no alteration of model. Tried AIO as well, with same result)
[*]Aela alternative version (tried with this disabled too, but this needs to overwrite)
[*]Lydia alternative version (tried with this disabled too, but this needs to overwrite)
[*]Seranaholic 1.1 model (tried with this disabled too)

Anyone have any idea? Everyone seems to run Bijin, and which much heavier loads too, so I am absolutely clueless.

Thank you so much, that was rather stupid of me, but yes that fixed it. Initially I simply misread and though the .dll was for SKSE only. I even managed to fix some old saves I feared had other mods baked in.

I am wondering if you had an idea about else too: any lighting mod I install results in purple cliff edges (again, see screenshot). ANY lighting mod, even if it's the only mod loaded. I have kind of resolved to play without lighting mods, but it's odd.