Well first off, I'm gonna miss my favorite nerdy subreddits. r/wow, r/Morrowind, r/Oblivion, r/Skyrim, r/Elderscrolls, and even r/trueSTL. Happy that Skyrimmods is here though!

Aside from that though, r/botchedsurgeries, r/amitheasshole, and r/hobbydrama.

The rest would be various animal subs, but hopefully, they find new homes quickly.

I had sort of the same problem when modding my summoner/sorcerer playthrough a while back, a lot of Necromancy stuff but not as much for the Daedric side of things. Now I love me some Necromancy, but it was a little frustrating not being able to find as much love for Daedra.

Someone else could probably recommend better as my recommendations here primarily come down to spell mods, but you mentioned a scholarly interest so something I can recommend is the Spell Research mod. I can't remember much about it as I haven't played with it enabled for a while, but it adds something extra rather than just getting spell tomes the normal way.

You already mentioned Mihails mods but I did the same, just added as many Daedra as I possibly could.

Not really Daedric-themed but this one adds more immersion to the College of Winterhold and lets you do quests for every school of magic, College of Winterhold Quest Expansion.

I might be able to recommend some house mods but the ones I used on my summoner playthrough were Dunmer-themed, and I think I just ended up using JK's College of Winterhold at the end of it.

Spell Research: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/20983

College of Winterhold Quest Expansion: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/66666

JK's College of Winterhold: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/65676

Edit OH I also forgot, just for the scholarly side of things there's The Eloquent Reader, gives you some speech experience for reading books. https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/16338

I have way too many to say and I'm unsure how many of them would count as must-haves for most people. However, for me, I'd say a lot of my must-have mods come down to magic mods because a ton of my characters end up using different sorts, so I like variety, such as:

Triumvirate - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/39170

Stormcaller Magic 2 - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/89643

Stellaris - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/86833

Singularity (haven't gotten a chance to use it yet but it seems rad) - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/38611

Shadow Spell Package - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/13299

Poison Magic of Skyrim - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/8944

Odin - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/46000

Mysticism - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/27839

Apocalypse - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/1090

More Apocalypse - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/18578

Lunaris - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/80852

Forgotten Magic Redone - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/12711

Blood Spells Pack - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/15652

Astral Magic 2 - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/69938

Arcanum - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/23488

Ace Blood Magic - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/16995

Honestly, I keep forgetting to disable some of these for a couple of my playthroughs so a ton of spells scattered all over just became the norm, even if I don't use most of them or if I'm playing a character that hardly even uses magic.

The only reason I ever tried out new land/quest mods, follower mods, and mods that added in random npcs, is because in one of my early save games I killed most of the townspeople and wanted to go to another land that was more populated/re-populate Skyrim with new NPCs because I ended up regretting killing so many people, but I didn't want to restart the save.

Oh, and also I don't think Nazeem is that bad. I don't like him but he's made to be that way anyways. Honestly, the worst punishment is to keep that guy alive, he'll always be wondering if his end is close every time you pass him, as many others have done to him.

Oh boy, I have a lot that I tend to use, it depends on the playthrough but I do have a small stock of player homes I keep for any playthrough occasion!

This part of the list is some of my more favorite player house mods that I've used often.

Vandfald Cottage by Thay S

Tel Aschan by Elianora

Severin Manor by Absorbed

Proudspire by Doxmazz

Leaf Rest SSE by Aukmat/mnikjom Side note about this one, to get the key you may need to TCL into the mailbox.

Cynn's Honeyside Redone by Cynndal

Cynn's Vlindrel Hall by Cynndal

Cynn's Hjerim by Cynndal

Breezehome by Lupus

Nightgate Cabin by RyoHab

Skaal You Need by Elianora

Sarethi Manor by TWarrior

Ash's Rest by teahunter121

Assassin's Sanctuary by K13RAN64 It's not subtle, but sometimes you just need an edgy manor house.

Honorable Mentions

These are my less-used player homes I have but ones I still adore regardless.

Crypt of the Old Guard by ToggleAI

Varbaril by DexMods

Unique Vampire Dens by Gonkish

Trollpacka by Thunderstorm95

The Northern Star Retreat Revised by ArchimageKhan

Routa by Elianora

Riftvale Lodge by Cynndal

Cliffside Cottage by Cynndal

I have a couple more but this is already a pretty long list, I was also going to add Tel Jerdein but saw you already had it mentioned as well. :)

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/24699 for you, my bro.

Oh I feel this. There's been playthroughs I've started purely to be evil, yet I still end up feeling bad most of the time.

I think the only run through I've had where I actually felt like I did a good job "justifying" it was with my very old Nerevarine Telvanni Sheogorath-worshipping sorceress that I played through Morrowind-Oblivion-Skyrim with. In her case, she wasn't trying to be necessarily evil, she was just blunt, had little patience, was straight to the point and didn't consider how her words or actions may affect someone, as long as she could continue hoarding artifacts and doing nutso mage things, she was happy. She also didn't understand why murder and thievery were illegal, if she saw something she wanted, she took it, she didn't get why the guards would be upset over it and was usually disgruntled with Skyrim's law system.

You mentioned Narfi, and that's one I remember giving a justification for on that play through. In my sorceress's mind, he deserved to be in a better place more suited for him, like the Shivering Isles, so off she sent him via a Lightning Bolt to the face.

I don't have any mod recommendations, but I wanted to give an example of how I justified it myself. I didn't feel as bad as I usually did with prior evil play throughs. :)

I don't think I've ever had problems with how many magic mods I have, I hardly get crashes as is and my last playthrough was sitting at around 450+ active mods.

The spell making isn't like Morrowind's or Oblivion's spell making, but I enjoy it as a stand-in. The spell making tables aren't everywhere but there's one in Winterhold & the Abandoned Shack. It's bugging me that I can't remember which mod the spell making table is from, haha.

Actually thought of another mod that's not magic-related, Informative Console - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/19250

Helps when I don't know what item or NPC comes from where.

FINALLY! My immersion is sated!

My favorite one was the immersive anxiety mod.

It's hard to choose a favorite out of all of them, they've also been in my games for so long that sometimes I can't remember what spell comes from which mod unless it's super obvious.

Forgotten Magic adds rings as well that buff up some of the spells which I thought was a nice addition. One of these mods adds a table where you can make spells (buying/finding two or more spell books to create a new spell) but I don't remember which one does that, also pretty sick though.

Flashing Savegames Fix was already mentioned, so instead I'll offer up Main Font Replacement, I use the Magic Cards font and it's one of the mods I always use but always underappreciate.

You also mentioned a music mod, while it doesn't replace the main menu theme and it's not technically a UI mod, I always play with Celtic Music in Skyrim, all tracks are from Adrian von Ziegler I think!

Font Replacer: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/14356 Celtic Music in Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/2980

Same honestly, I've only used it for one playthrough but it was really nice! It's one I'll have to go back to for sure. :)

The images make her seem way more like a NSFW/flirty follower, but she actually has no lines like that, but I get it haha, first glance it wouldn't be for me either.

Thanks for giving her a go! I'm very passionate about Skyrim modding so I'm happy I get to lend my voice to something like this, as well as help on the writing side when needed. :)

Coldsun modeled the follower after hearing my voice which isn't a process he usually does. There may have been inspiration but I don't think it was directly modeled after me, if it was then I wasn't told so, haha.

With the save-safe stuff, you may be better off asking Coldsun about that, I've only provided my voice & I'm now doing some of the writing. He's been active in the comments of the mod and he's pretty chill, might get a better answer from him! ^^

Thank you! I've voiced in a couple of mods aside from Astara, like Old Blood, Betalille's Hammerfell quest expansion, and a small largely WIP mod called Idrinith's Speaking Weapons where I voice a greatsword.

I hope I'm able to work with more in the modding community, voicing for mods has been my favorite type of voice work and I'm thrilled to be a part of it every time. :)