#the crown petone could be collaborating with a museum tho

[magpie-trinkets]

Okay so, I have counted the "minutes" and I counted around 25-28? As the clock/music machine is illuminated by a strong light, and the "ruler" is made of light metal, the light shines in the metal in such a way that completely obscures some of the lines. But it is a rough estimate of time, as the lower end of the ruler seems to be covered by wood. I think it's fair to say that this timer is set to around 25 minutes or half an hour.

As I've said (but rather excitedly as a consequence of the realisation) the paper moves at an observable speed between frames, which means it moves relatively fast. It moves too fast to be hourly-timed, and what's more, now that I counted the measures of time, if each unit was an hour, this whole sheet would take an entire day to play, which isn't the case.

Here is the thing in all its splendor. The frame is too wide and far away to really make out the details without a zoom, so,

With the magic of editing and increasing or decreasing values, this emerges. The lines are clearly visible on the middle-lower part, but become faint (but visible) in the upper part. If each of the long lines indicate 1min as a ruler would mark 1cm, then it is a question of counting very carefully. I've done it by eye, so I could've counted wrong.

So this machine, according to my theory, is a countdown timer that uses a music sheet, which has two sets of notes: ones written in ink, others punched into the paper. This suggests that, as the timer counts down, there is a song playing that uses two instruments. This somehow relates to skeletons and shit– the passage of time?! A fossil, which is old; a crystal, which takes a long fucking time to form naturally; a whale skeleton, which takes a while to completely decompose. (They could've taken it from a whale fall, but I doubt it: they form in deep ocean, and they form ecosystems of their own– I doubt they would intentionally destroy that ecosystem for one skeleton, when there are other ways of obtaining one. A beached whale is the most likely candidate, but they could've gotten the bones from an already decomposed corpse, but in shallower waters.)

And how does this timer relate to the situation at large? What happens when it counts down? How much time is left?! And why does the Layton-shaped Object not feel any sense of urgency, if he understands the puzzle? Even if the machine isn't a timer, the sheet is still being consumed, and it's nearly over.