OK so I posted the other day about save bloat but I don't think that's it. My save game files are pretty small, like 6mb.

Got an issue where quick saving suddenly started taking like 30 seconds. Don't recall adding any mods other than the 30 I already had been using for a long time without fail.

Reverted Skyrim back to vanilla, installed the latest unofficial patches (USLEEP) along with updating all mods and watching many tutorials to make sure they're installed correctly. Got LOOT and LOOT says all is well.

Start a new game, quick save is about 3 seconds. It very slowly gets longer and longer until I'm like lvl 7 and it's about 12 seconds.

Started a new game and same thing, about lvl 8 it's at 15 seconds.

This is awful, I quicksave a lot and have never had an issue in the past. Regular save takes like 1 second. It pisses me off that I can't quicksave in case I screw up a fight.

Nothing else takes longer than normal, loading screens etc are pretty normal for my system.

Where do I start?

Tried papyrus data transfer which is now some "skyrim script scalpel" which is way above my pay grade. I've used the TES5Edit tool to clean my mods and patches per LOOT and vids I've watched from Gopher, all of that seemed well.