Adding animation to variable-populated text field changes text field settings (By Paragraph)

I'm trying to create a course where I load in all content from a JSON file. I'm doing this by creating slide templates that have text and image fields which are populated by SL variables. On a loading page, I pull the text from a JSON file and use it to redefine the variables so that they display with the proper text from that slide.

If I leave the text fields on "Resize shape to fit text", the way you normally set text fields when pasting info in, it instead shrinks the all the text to fit the text field, which makes absolutely no sense, since you're specifically selecting NOT that option, but that's what it does. In order to get the text to display properly, I need to set the text fields to "Do not autofit" with "Wrap text" selected, and then manually resize the text fields to their maximum size. When I do that, all text displays properly. 

However, after I went through and added simple fade transitions to all the text fields, it went back to shrinking the text to tiny size to fit a single line. This happens whether or not the text animates on the very first frame or is delayed to animate in later. If the text just appears with no animation, either on the first frame or delayed, it displays properly. 

I've attached an image of test output to 8 different text fields, each color coded across from a descriptor of the text field options. Only 2 of the 8 fields display properly; fields with "Do not autofit" selected, and no SL animation added (cyan and blue). It will be very problematic to upload a Storyline file due to client concerns.

Is this some kind of expected behavior that I can remedy with some different options, or will I have to come up with a crazy workaround to having transitions?

 

**Quick Edit**
I did some more tests and found that the text displays properly if I set the Effect Options to "As one object" but if I change it to "By Paragraph", that's where the issue occurs. I would still need the bulleted lists to animate one item at a time, so any update on this would be appreciated.