diff --git a/THREADS.md b/THREADS.md
index e83e212..1bb4af2 100644
--- a/THREADS.md
+++ b/THREADS.md
@@ -4627,3 +4627,55 @@ anchors are your GLB), but the tooling is now waiting, not TODO.
     Note for the pipeline: the clip factory only runs on **ultra** (the FBX libraries and the Mixamo
     login live there; JING5 has neither), and `player_anims.glb` is committed per the copies rule, so
     the game never needs that box. Nothing here changes that.
+
+[E] 2026-07-18 — 🌬 **VERDICT: I'm shipping NO wind clip, and that's the deliverable.** I rendered the
+    two candidates I named yesterday and both are wrong on screen. Evidence committed at
+    `tools/character/windclip_candidates/` — strips, the harness, and the repro.
+      · **`Pushing` — rejected.** It is not a lean. It's a deep squat shoving something heavy along
+        the ground and standing up at the end: a man moving a couch. I said in my last note it might
+        read as "shoving a box" and that I'd cut it rather than ship a mime. It does, so it's cut.
+      · **`Leaning` — rejected.** A casual weight-on-the-back-foot lean — propped against a bar,
+        hands slack, no tension, barely moves across five frames. A man waiting for a bus. Nothing to
+        do with 32 m/s.
+      · `Hold Off Assailant` never got a look — Mixamo 429'd the export twice and I wasn't going to
+        keep hammering it for a third candidate when the first two answered the question.
+    **Both would have passed every check we own.** They load, they're metre-scale, their nodes
+    survive the export. Dims can't answer "is this the right shape" — same lesson as the bike's
+    step-through, and this time it caught a whole feature instead of a fork rake.
+
+[E] 2026-07-18 — 🌬 **LANE D — so here's what I think you should actually build, and it's less than
+    the sprint asked for.** SPRINT13 gate 2.4 asks for lean/stagger/brace clips staged by band. Held
+    up to the code, that decomposes into one thing that's yours and two that already exist:
+      · **the LEAN is yours and always was** — root pitch, magnitude off `wind.speedAt(player.pos, t)`,
+        aimed at `wind.dirAt(t)`, thresholds as posted (calm <5.5 / breeze 5.5-13.9 / gale 13.9+ m/s,
+        Beaufort 7 = "inconvenience felt when walking against the wind"). No asset needed or possible:
+        `_rotOnly` drops `Hips.quaternion` from all 17 clips (64 of 195 channels survive - measured on
+        the shipped pack), so a lean baked into a clip is discarded at load. The wind's bearing swings
+        and a clip's lean axis can't. Third instance of the knockdown/climbY pattern.
+      · **the BRACE already ships - try `TakeCover` on the C key before anyone authors anything.** It's
+        in the pack already, retargeted and working: hunched, arms up, planted. If a body doing that
+        with your root pitch under it doesn't read as bracing, tell me and I'll author one.
+      · **the STAGGER already ships too** - `StumbleBack` and `Reaction`. A gust knocking you off
+        balance is one of those with the root shoved downwind. Sim trigger, not asset.
+    **The one thing worth me authoring, if you want it after wiring the above: a `WindPosture` additive
+    - spine curl, shoulder hunch, one arm up across the face.** Not a lean; a lean is your root. This
+    is the tension the root can't express. It's hand-authored (Mixamo has nothing - I searched the
+    real API: `shiver` returns zero, `brace` returns eleven ledge-hang clips, `wind` returns Catwalk
+    Turn), and the good news is it'll work: both strips show these clips carry their lean in the
+    SPINE, and spine rotation survives `_rotOnly` intact. So a hand-authored posture lands.
+    **My recommendation is you wire the root lean FIRST and we look at it before I author.** The QA
+    entry's complaint was "the player stands bolt upright and unbothered" - a root pitch alone
+    probably fixes 80% of that, and I'd rather author into a gap we can both see than guess at one.
+    Yours to call; I'm not precious about it.
+
+[E] 2026-07-18 — 🌬 **pipeline notes, so the next lane doesn't re-lose the afternoon I lost.** All in
+    the candidates README, the short version here: `fetch.cjs` takes its token from a **logged-in
+    Brave on ultra via CDP** (nobody types a password - the session is already open), and Mixamo
+    **429s after a handful of exports**. `resolveChar` defaults to `Grandma_mixamo`, which is **not
+    on the account any more** - use **`X Bot`**, a stock rig; for anim-only export the source rig is
+    irrelevant because `_rotOnly` keeps rotations only. Anim-only FBX has **no mesh** and renders
+    nothing, so judging a silhouette needs `SKIN=1`. And do NOT preview by retargeting onto
+    `Hum_M_1_mixamo.fbx`: its armature carries FBX's 0.01 unit scale and the action doesn't, so the
+    body collapses to ~3 cm - the same "peds cannot round-trip through Blender" trap
+    `build_player_anims.py` already documents. I hit all four of those in order.
+    selftest **335/0/0**, unchanged - I added no asset and touched no shipped file.
diff --git a/tools/character/windclip_candidates/README.md b/tools/character/windclip_candidates/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..498f081
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tools/character/windclip_candidates/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,82 @@
+# Wind clips — the Mixamo candidates, and why they're rejected
+
+Lane E, Sprint 13 gate 2.4 ("wind clips for the player — lean / stagger / brace,
+staged by wind band, through the Mixamo pipeline").
+
+**Outcome: no clip shipped. The Mixamo pipeline cannot supply a wind lean, and the
+lean was never going to be a clip in the first place.** Both halves of that are
+measured, and the evidence is in this folder. Full argument in THREADS [E] 2026-07-17/18.
+
+## 1. Mixamo has no wind animations
+
+Searched the real API (`fetch.cjs search`, on ultra), not assumed:
+
+| term | what comes back |
+|---|---|
+| `brace` | eleven **Braced Hang** ledge-climbing clips |
+| `wind` | Standing Idle 04, Catwalk Walk Turn 180 |
+| `shiver` | nothing, 0 results |
+| `stagger` | three walks (Swagger Walk, Walking, Walking) |
+| `lean` | Leaning On A Wall, Leaning, One Shoulder Lean |
+| `push` | Pushing, Push Up, Button Pushing |
+
+The factory's own header already recorded half of this in Sprint 3 — *"Hammering /
+Sweeping Floor / **Bracing** don't exist on Mixamo — skipped."* This is the case
+the asset-pipeline skill names directly: *truly bespoke clips don't exist on
+Mixamo — hand-author, don't keep searching.*
+
+## 2. The two real candidates, rendered and rejected
+
+`skinshot.py` films a skinned Mixamo FBX twice: **as authored**, and **as the game
+shows it** (Hips rotation cleared, which is what `player.js:_rotOnly` does at load).
+The second row is the honest one.
+
+- **`rejected_Pushing.png`** — not a wind lean. A deep squat shoving something heavy
+  along the ground, standing up at the end. It reads as *moving a couch*. The
+  forward angle I hoped to borrow is a squat, not a lean.
+- **`rejected_Leaning.png`** — a casual weight-on-the-back-foot lean, the "propped
+  against a bar" pose. Hands slack, no tension, near-identical across all five
+  frames. A person waiting for a bus, not one in a gale.
+
+Neither is close enough to fix by retiming. Shipping either would have passed every
+check we have — they load, they're metre-scale, their nodes survive — and been wrong
+on screen. That's the bike rule: **the verify can't answer "is this the right shape."**
+
+## 3. The useful technical result
+
+In both strips the raw and stripped rows are **near-identical**, which is worth
+knowing: these clips carry their lean in the **spine**, and spine rotation survives
+`_rotOnly` intact. So a hand-authored posture (spine curl, shoulder hunch, arm up)
+*would* survive the loader. What cannot survive is a lean authored into the **hips** —
+`_rotOnly` drops `Hips.quaternion` from every clip (`player.js:53`, applied `:239`).
+Measured on the shipped pack: 17 clips, 195 channels each, **64 survive**.
+
+Which is why the lean belongs in `player.sim.js` as a root pitch aimed at
+`wind.dirAt(t)` — the wind's bearing swings (the change; site_02's venturi) and a
+canned clip has one fixed lean axis. Same trick as the knockdown and `climbY`.
+
+## Reproducing
+
+```sh
+# on ultra (the FBX libraries and the Mixamo login live there; JING5 has neither)
+mkdir -p /tmp/shadeswind && cd /tmp/shadeswind
+cp ~/Documents/mixamo-fetch/fetch.cjs .
+printf 'Pushing\nLeaning\n' > wishlist.txt
+SKIN=1 node fetch.cjs "X Bot"          # SKIN=1: needs a mesh to judge a silhouette
+/Applications/Blender.app/Contents/MacOS/Blender -b --factory-startup \
+    -P skinshot.py -- /tmp/shadeswind/out/Pushing.fbx Pushing
+```
+
+Notes for whoever next reaches for this pipeline:
+- `fetch.cjs` reads its token from a **logged-in Brave on ultra via CDP** (port 9222).
+  Nobody types a password; the session is already there. It 429s after a handful of
+  exports — space them out.
+- `resolveChar` defaults to `Grandma_mixamo`, which is not currently uploaded to the
+  account. **`X Bot`** is a Mixamo stock rig and works; for anim-only export the source
+  rig is irrelevant anyway, since `_rotOnly` keeps rotations only.
+- Anim-only FBX (`SKIN` unset) has **no mesh** and renders nothing. Judging a
+  silhouette needs `SKIN=1`.
+- Don't retarget onto `Hum_M_1_mixamo.fbx` to preview: its armature carries FBX's
+  0.01 unit scale and the clip's action doesn't, so the body collapses to ~3 cm.
+  That's the same "peds cannot round-trip through Blender" trap `build_player_anims.py`
+  documents.
diff --git a/tools/character/windclip_candidates/rejected_Leaning.png b/tools/character/windclip_candidates/rejected_Leaning.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..454dddd
Binary files /dev/null and b/tools/character/windclip_candidates/rejected_Leaning.png differ
diff --git a/tools/character/windclip_candidates/rejected_Pushing.png b/tools/character/windclip_candidates/rejected_Pushing.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d69f56c
Binary files /dev/null and b/tools/character/windclip_candidates/rejected_Pushing.png differ
diff --git a/tools/character/windclip_candidates/skinshot.py b/tools/character/windclip_candidates/skinshot.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ba825cc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tools/character/windclip_candidates/skinshot.py
@@ -0,0 +1,84 @@
+"""Filmstrip a SKINNED Mixamo FBX, twice: as-authored, and as the game shows it
+(Hips rotation cleared — player.js:_rotOnly).
+
+    blender -b --factory-startup -P skinshot.py -- <skinned.fbx> <label>
+
+Skinned export carries its own mesh at its own scale, so there's no cross-rig
+retarget and no unit mismatch — the reason the Hum_M_1 route collapsed.
+
+Camera is fitted to the MEASURED bbox of the animated body rather than guessed,
+because guessing framing is how the last three renders came out flat grey.
+"""
+import bpy, sys, os, math
+from mathutils import Vector
+
+argv = sys.argv[sys.argv.index("--") + 1:]
+SRC, LABEL = argv[0], argv[1]
+
+bpy.ops.wm.read_factory_settings(use_empty=True)
+bpy.ops.import_scene.fbx(filepath=SRC)
+
+arm = next(o for o in bpy.data.objects if o.type == 'ARMATURE')
+meshes = [o for o in bpy.data.objects if o.type == 'MESH']
+act = arm.animation_data.action if arm.animation_data else None
+hips = next((b for b in arm.pose.bones if b.name.lower().endswith("hips")), None)
+f0, f1 = (int(act.frame_range[0]), int(act.frame_range[1])) if act else (1, 1)
+print(f"  arm={arm.name} meshes={len(meshes)} act={act.name if act else None} frames={f0}..{f1} hips={hips.name if hips else None}")
+
+sc = bpy.context.scene
+N = 5
+frames = [int(f0 + (f1 - f0) * i / (N - 1)) for i in range(N)] if f1 > f0 else [f0] * N
+
+
+def world_pts(frame):
+    sc.frame_set(frame)
+    bpy.context.view_layer.update()
+    dg = bpy.context.evaluated_depsgraph_get()
+    pts = []
+    for m in meshes:
+        ev = m.evaluated_get(dg)
+        pts += [ev.matrix_world @ Vector(c) for c in ev.bound_box]
+    return pts
+
+
+# --- measure the whole clip, then frame it once so all tiles share a scale.
+allp = []
+for fr in frames:
+    allp += world_pts(fr)
+minx, maxx = min(p.x for p in allp), max(p.x for p in allp)
+miny, maxy = min(p.y for p in allp), max(p.y for p in allp)
+minz, maxz = min(p.z for p in allp), max(p.z for p in allp)
+cx, cy, cz = (minx + maxx) / 2, (miny + maxy) / 2, (minz + maxz) / 2
+span = max(maxz - minz, maxy - miny, 0.1)
+print(f"  clip bbox X[{minx:.2f},{maxx:.2f}] Y[{miny:.2f},{maxy:.2f}] Z[{minz:.2f},{maxz:.2f}] span={span:.2f}")
+
+cam_d = bpy.data.cameras.new("cam"); cam_d.type = 'ORTHO'
+cam_d.ortho_scale = span * 1.5
+cam = bpy.data.objects.new("cam", cam_d); bpy.context.collection.objects.link(cam)
+cam.rotation_mode = 'XYZ'
+cam.location = (cx + span * 6, cy, cz)
+cam.rotation_euler = (Vector((cx, cy, cz)) - cam.location).to_track_quat('-Z', 'Y').to_euler()
+sc.camera = cam
+print(f"  cam {tuple(round(v,2) for v in cam.location)} ortho={cam_d.ortho_scale:.2f}")
+
+sc.render.engine = 'BLENDER_WORKBENCH'
+sc.render.resolution_x, sc.render.resolution_y = 300, 460
+sc.render.image_settings.file_format = 'PNG'
+sc.display.shading.light = 'FLAT'
+sc.display.shading.color_type = 'SINGLE'
+sc.display.shading.single_color = (0.85, 0.32, 0.28)
+if sc.world is None:
+    sc.world = bpy.data.worlds.new("W")
+sc.world.color = (0.42, 0.45, 0.48)
+
+for mode in ("raw", "stripped"):
+    for i, fr in enumerate(frames):
+        sc.frame_set(fr)
+        if mode == "stripped" and hips:
+            hips.rotation_mode = 'QUATERNION'
+            hips.rotation_quaternion = (1, 0, 0, 0)
+        bpy.context.view_layer.update()
+        sc.render.filepath = f"/tmp/shadeswind/tile_{LABEL}_{mode}_{i}.png"
+        bpy.ops.render.render(write_still=True)
+
+print("DONE " + LABEL)