Expected Behavior

Forge loading the mods

Actual Behavior

Forge stops and display following text:

A dependency cycle was detected in the input mod set so an ordering cannot be determined
The first mod in the cycle is FMLMod:animania{1.6}
The mod cycle involves:
FMLMod:thermalexpansion{5.5.2} : before: [enderio], after: [cofhcore@[4.6.0,4.7.0), thermalfoundation@[2.6.0,2.7.0), codechickenlib@[3.1.7,)]
FMLMod:quark{r1.5-129} : before: [autoreglib], after: []
Dummy Container (AfterAll) @109920591 : before: [], after: []
APIContainer{BetterWithModsAPI:Beta 0.6} : before: [quark], after: [betterwithmods]
Dummy Container (After) @1134600044 : before: [], after: []
FMLMod:animania{1.6} : before: [zawa, thermalexpansion], after: [craftstudioapi, cofhcore, harvestcraft, natura, quark, botania, biomesoplenty, twilightforest, aroma1997sdimension, openterraingenerator, forge@[14.23.2.2638,)]
FMLMod:betterwithmods{1.12-2.3.16-998} : before: [survivalist], after: [traverse, thaumcraft, natura, mantle, tconstruct, minechem, natura, terrafirmacraft, immersiveengineering, mekanism, thermalexpansion, ctm, geolosys, pvj, techreborn]

Note: Quark dependency seems to be the issue, no problem using animania version prior to 1.6 .

Steps to Reproduce

Mods installed appearing in the cycle:
-Animania 1.6 or above
-Cofhcore 4.6.1.22
-Thermal expansion 5.5.2.39
-codechickenlib 3.2.2.353
-Quark 1.5-30
-Betterwithmods 2.3.16-998
-craftstudiaapi 1.0.0
-harvestcraft 1.12a
-biomes o plenty 7.0.1
-thaumcraft 6.1.BETA26
-immersiveengineering 0.12-86
-mekanism 9.4.13.349
-geolosys 2.1.3.1

Version of Minecraft, version of Animania, Single Player or Server

Minecraft 1.12.2, Animania 1.6 and above.

Screenshots encouraged

The quark dependency has been in for a while now. My guess is something has changed with quark.

Making a quick scheme, it seems that Thermal Expansion dependency added by the "Fancy Egg stuff, Bee stings" commit that causes the problem. I Renamed the issue

Don't think it's thermal expansion either, my game loads just fine with both quark and thermal expansion installed.

I replicated the bug with a fresh install:
Forge 14.23.5.2768
-Animania 1.6.0.2
-AutoRegLib 1.3-20
-Cofhcore 4.6.1.22
-CofhWorld 1.3.0.6
-Thermal expansion 5.5.2.39
-Thermal Dynamics 2.5.3.16
-Thermal Foundation 2.6.1.22
-codechickenlib 3.2.2.353
-Quark 1.5-30
-Betterwithmods 2.3.16-998
-craftstudiaapi 1.0.0
-RedstoneFlux 2.1.0.6

The dependency cycle is solved by disabling Better with mods, or Thermal Expansion.
This is due to the Thermal Expansion and Quark dependencies in Animalia and BWM, so I guess these two mods are now incompatibles.

Animania wants to load before TE and after Quark, BWM wants to load after TE and before Quark. My question is: why does Animania want to load between those mods?

Looks like the reason for Quark is the dispenser thing, but Quark already disables its dispenser behavior for seeds if Animania is detected. The reason for TE is morbs, but I'm not entirely sure that's actually necessary to declare. I think at least the Quark dependency declaration could be removed without issues.

Yes, I've been looking into it and I've come to the same conclusion.