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I know....I am behind the times...way behind..

So I just got Skyrim SE for the PC

Interested in getting some mods.

I see the two main places are Steam Workshop and Nexus Mods.

My question is: how do these two entities interact?

If I find something in one place but can't find it in the other....will it (theoretically) work?

Thanks for helping educate an old dog to some new tricks!

They both do basically the same thing. The only difference is which app is downloading the mods and helping you manage them. Honestly you could probably use both as a source of mods, but only use one to actually manage them (namely manage which order the mods are loaded in when you start the game).

But yes. Mods should work because it's the game their modding, not Steam or Nexus. Many mods are now on both platforms and Steam will update them for you automatically. IMO it's easier to use. Nexus will need you to either manually update the mods, or download their mod manager app which is a good app but it is another program on your computer and you need to make a login of course.

Since it's right up this threads ally here is an thread I started years ago listing some of my favorite mods however it is a years old thread. Many of those mods might not be around or updated for Skyrim SE, but they were damn good mods imo. I made a thread about them

Figured this part (thanks for the explanation) out.

Its weird how some Steam workshop mods dont actually take effect even if you are subscribed to them.

Got a bunch of cool stuff now.....now my next challenge is to get SKSE installed and working properly so I can get SkyUI tp work.

I'd hazard that if you want to play a modded Skyrim, the base game may be the better place to go. Mods for one version of the game aren't comparable for the other, so there's a lot of mods out there which haven't been ported to the Special Edition. As far as I'm aware the newer edition of the game was made to sell on the newer consoles. With it having better graphics. However, if you're on PC you already have access to mods which offer those. The Special Edition in practice just being the base game with some graphics mods installed like an ENB (though I'm sure there's other changes. Though the game's been out that long that there's tonnes of mods for performance boosting, etc).

Zaric Zhakaron has a mod list made to be fairly streamlined, but offering a decent chunk of new content which you may want to look at if you're starting out. Plus some videos on setting it up. I haven't touched the game in years, so I can't speak for what the meta is with all the mods you should be running unfortunately. There's still plenty of Youtube channels out there doing mod reviews. ...Though personally when coming back to a Bethesda game I'll typically go through the first 1000 mods on the most popular & most recent uploads before refining my searches for specific things I want (with games which span years of modding great mods can get lost as they don't have enough downloads compared to the ancient ones to make it high up on the top downloads lists).

On Nexus thet have a specific section for Skyrim SE mods, so the compatability isn't going to be an issue.

Got some big ones that update all the major cities, Breezehome (omg that mod rocks..it is amazig!), and even one that alters the palace and jarl holds to make them more...impressive. So far....holy gak they are amazing!

Added a completely buildable community called Blackthorn.

Also about 400 new spells and even a "witchcraft and wizardry" school"mod

So far everything has just been amazing and adds so much depth to the world!

If you are still wondering about modding, Gopher over on Youtube has an extensive section on modding games, especially Bethesda stuff.
While he may not have a SSE modding guide, his older stuff on Oldrim is still interesting and still rather relevant, especially things like load order and so on.
What mod organizer tool do you use? Nexus Mod Manager, Mod Organizer 2 or Vortex?

Most of the good mods got ported over to Skyrim SE, which is really just Skyrim running on 64 instead of 32 bits which actually makes complex mods run smoother. One of the underlying problems many Skyrim mods had was that 32 bits just wasn't cutting it and executing complex scripts into the game was so hard to achieve the only mod that actually did a lot of them was the Prostitution Mod (yes there is such a thing XD). While many mods have not been ported to the SE version of the game, most of the good ones have.

Unless you want SKSE64 enabled plugins the mod section of the actual client is great, you can even navigate it pretty easy with a controller. Another bonus is that updating mods is one click, unlike going through the nexus which requires a full re-install (of the mod) which ALWAYS runs the risk of save corruption. I haven't seen anything on Nexus recently that's been worth it and have a heavily modded game through bethesda's mod menu that is WAAAYYY more stable than my SkyrimLE EVER was through using Nexus mods.

In my experience although fun when they work, (they frequently break due to the many hardcoded issues within Skyrim's scripting engine. Literally things like the instancing of a particular cell can break SKSE scripts permanently for a particular save file, TK dodge was INSANELY bad for that) SKSE plugins are incredibly unstable and can lead to (not exaggerating) saves that are MULTIPLE gigabytes in size. Wondering why your game takes 5 minutes to load or crashes at load screens? It's not because it's crashed per se it's because it's loading a 4gb savegame.

Avoid steam workshop like the plague, they are rarely uploads from the actual mod author, are seldom if ever updated. If you don't believe me, read a sample of comments most will be complaints.

Sidenote same goes for Mount and Blade Warband when it comes to steam workshop, actually more so as most of the steam workshop uploads will crash your game.

If you haven't gotten it already, my favourite mod of all time is the Dragonborn Gallery. Basically it gives you somewhere to put all the unique items you find in the game and all the major mods out there but it also comes with several fantastic storylines, a new guild to join, the best player home and tonnes more that I wouldn't have time to explain.

Definitely worth doing a whole playthrough of the game just to enjoy everything it has to offer if you're the kind of person who loves to horde everything you find and don't know where to put it!