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this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2026
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I mean ehhhhh. It's not impossible, but LSD definitely seems the most probable if we assume this is a chemistry reference (the most compelling alternative idea to LSD imo is that it could be erroneous human pattern recognition). LSD is synthesized from ergotamine and has an ergoline structure, and of the family of lysergamides that look similar, LSD clearly fits the best given its popularity and the way the carbonyl group lines up with that bit of shelf going off to the top-right.
(Please take that with a grain of salt; I'm not a chemist.)
It's definitely not LSD. There's no CH3 group off the bottom right and others are saying the cut off part of the LSD molecule in the picture has more to it too.
Maybe it's meant to illicit the idea, but it's not a perfect match.
Others are wrong. Please see the Reddit post where it shows the topmost portion. It has only three edges. It's open-topped.
As for the methyl and CH3 groups, that's where, as noted, I begin to suspect erroneous human pattern recognition, but I'd also see a universe where those were too cumbersome to incorporate as elements of a functional shelf (unlike the carbonyl group, albeit that's only one layer) and thus were ignored.
The two going straight up just to terminate are also not contributing to a functional shelf.
It's just added plausible deniability. By not matching perfectly the person who added it in can just play dumb and just claim that it is a coincident if someone got mad.
Also this meme is about nine years old.
https://au.lifestyle.yahoo.com/drug-lsd-reference-in-disney-kids-show-puppy-dog-pals-37231747.html
The article bemoans drug references in Alice In Wonderland , which has uh... Lots of drug references.
https://mostrecommendedbooks.com/series/alice-in-wonderland-books-in-order
Idk about the caterpillar smoking hookah though, it's plausible deniability, since afaik, tobacco use is only permitted in hookah, under Islamic law. Maybe @ArgumentativeMonotheist@lemmy.world can confirm or deny, or whether it's sect-specific?
Heyo! Not very big on Islamic jurisprudence because it's often nonsense and haram af as it seeks to make unlawful what God made lawful (Qur'an 16:116) but it's certainly "sect-specific" for lack of a better term, since the Qur'an warns against intoxicants (basically just alcohol but I'm not doing anything "stronger" than that, like crack, even if it's not the result of fermentation, lol) but not against anything else in that category that isn't mind altering and shisha is just tobacco with flavouring, basically. ๐
Thank you so much. I have questions but they have to wait. I should be sleeping.
Catch some zzzs, ttyl! ๐
A Reddit thread from April 2017 (possibly its first appearance?) does try to critique it. Notably, for example, there's a hexagon instead of a pentagon at the base, and the top shelf has three edges instead of four.
It's easy enough to explain this away given that you have to make it a shelf and therefore level, but humans have recognized more credible-seeming patterns before (I can't cite them because I can't remember exactly what they were, but I've seen some really funny ones in the Bible), so it also seems plausible that people are just pattern-recognizing. This is professionally animated, so time went into this, and you could imagine, for example, that the bulb hanging down from one of the shelves wouldn't have have been included since it changes the structure of the compound (but then you could equally argue that the shelf was there and some other animator put a light bulb on it).
All-in-all: eh. Seems neat as a harmless fan conspiracy.
Animators also tend to take a lot of shortcuts, though; especially when it comes to backgrounds in shots. I could definitely believe that some animator was like, "ok, we need a science-y looking decoration back here" and so they went on a royalty-free stock 3D asset website and downloaded this one based only on what it looked like.
I didn't know anything about this show going into this and probably should've checked, but apparently this god among twinks shown in the OP is an inventor, so that explanation would track too.
Nothing wrong with having fun. My complaint is people complaining about references that were in the wholesome original works. ๐