Elden Ring - It's complicated

What exactly counts as input reading may be debatable for some, and Elden Ring has a system that seems like it might straddle the line for some people or get off on a technicality for others. Figuring out exactly how it works requires some amount of conjecture, as while we can read the AI scripts, we don't have the decompiled exe or anything, so we're not 100% sure how they're run. Between technical analysis, educated guesses, and practical experiments, this is my understanding of how the system seems to work, and I hopefully didn't get anything too blatantly incorrect.

Song used: Korok Forest (Night) - The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild OST