When you load player-animator with OptiFine_1.18.2_HD_U_H7.jar the game will crash when you load a world, by itself or with better combat and cloth config.
Forge 40.2.0
crash-2023-02-11_20.48.00-server.txt

I think this is caused by optifine itself (try to replicate with only OF).
If you still believe this is caused by PlayerAnimator, please share full client logs!

I found out the issue, it was because I didn't have the right version of optifine. It would load by itself fine, but when paired with player-animator it would crash. Thank you for the fast response!
preview_OptiFine_1.18.2_HD_U_H9_pre2.jar