So Much (For) Blitz —An exclusive reveal of the star of Fall Out Boy’s latest album cover

Fall Out Boy’s latest effort So Much (For) Stardust) has been critically acclaimed and lauded by fans as some of their best work to date. The album artwork, prominently featuring a doberman, has left some puzzled and looking for additional context as to the dog’s identity and how the artwork came to be. The Bad Habits Collection is proud to bring you the exclusive reveal of the dog featured on the cover of their eighth studio album alongside the full story of how they were discovered.

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When Fall Out Boy officially announced their eighth studio album on January 18th, 2023 and unveiled the album artwork for So Much (For) Stardust, there were a lot of opinions to be had. Some of the fans immediately felt connected and claimed it as their own, some compared it to Fiona Apple’s 2020 release Fetch the Bolt Cutters, and some downright found it revolting. Overall, most agreed that it was polarizing to say the least. Donned in an all black background, the front cover features both the name of the band and the album itself in the work of Omar Mroz (hereinafter referred to by his online moniker Mr.Oz). The text is covered in glitter and written out in the same style featured earlier in the rollout of FOB8’s album cycle with A Claymation Fall Out Boy Celebration, dropped as a surprise present from the band on Christmas one month earlier. The headlining attraction of this sideshow was in fact just a simple square box, containing a swirling artistic depiction of a doberman barking in the presence of a froth of bubbles.

From the moment I first laid eyes on the iconography of Fall Out Boy’s new era, I had just two questions in mind: Who is the dog? & Why choose the dog? A few obvious possibilities were immediately ruled out. Solely based on what’s been posted to social media, this dog did not belong to Pete, Joe, or Andy. Patrick has remained dormant online for years at this point, but still the odds felt slim. I did my best to brush it off, but ultimately I kept coming back to the thought of WHY? If you’re familiar with my previous work on the history of Take This To Your Grave’s album cover, you already know this type of sentiment means a lot to me. After a while of waiting for the band to bring up the topic in an interview or statement, I had essentially given up hope on any type of official explanation. It was at this moment, just 3 days before the release of the record, that I accepted the reality of the situation. This wasn’t a hot topic within the fandom. And no one was going to provide me with the answers I was looking for. If I wanted to know more, it was solely up to me. So… I got to work. — 

To take a step back, the artwork for So Much (For) Stardust first hit the internet on January 11th, seven days before the official reveal. Posted alongside the name of the first single Love From The Other Side, our barking pup friend was featured on the home feed of FILTER | NEWs on VK, a Russian social media site that I’ve been told is comparable to Facebook. The artwork was watermarked with a subtle, transparent white logo for FILTER in the background. Despite this post being up for five days (a millennia on the worldwide web), it wasn’t until the 16th that the fandom at large made this discovery, with many claiming it was an outright fake.

However, the *stars* started to align proving this leak to have a dose or two of authenticity. Mr.Oz’s claymation video from earlier in the rollout followed the story of a similar looking doberman, who just so happened to pose in the final frame in a style strongly resembling the leaked cover. 

Beyond that, a post from lyricist and bassist Pete Wentz’s Instagram dating back just two days earlier was quickly dug up. On the 4th slide of the carousel, there it was: a selfie of Pete with a Santa hat on and propped up on the shelf behind him... the physical painting of the doberman seen on the leaked cover.

All but confirmed at this point, one last clue presented itself online. The freshly created Twitter account “@muchstardust” popped up out of nowhere, making itself known by following myself and a few other notable hardcore fans in this space. @muchstardust made just one single tweet before being suspended (for reasons unknown). 

The post featured three images, the watermarked cover, Pete’s selfie, and notably, a compressed form of the actual photo taken of man’s best friend —the same one the leaked cover features an oil painting rendition of. 

—  As we all know now, this leak was indeed real and confirmed as the album artwork just a few days later by Fall Out Boy themselves. But that’s when the trail went cold. Later promotional photos featuring the band and taken by their long time collaborator Pamela Littky included another doberman, but clearly not the same one once examined a bit closer. On March 21st, the Chicago rock group posted “What do you think the dog’s name is? 🫧”, but never followed up with the answer. It’s as if they were taunting me specifically with how vocal I had been about wanting to solve this mystery. Just before the album’s official release, I was tipped off by someone with an early copy of the CD that the liner notes of So Much (For) Stardust credit Safia Latif for the cover painting and Jen Patterson for the photograph the cover painting was based on. With new pieces of the puzzle in play, my search for the dog in question was reignited. However, my leads proved of little to no help. I could not get in touch with Safia and could not properly identify Jen Patterson online for the life of me. Taking the hunt back to the drawing board, I reverse image searched the photo @muchstardust had originally provided, which even at this point, months later, was our only source of the actual photograph. Littered with results of the album artwork naturally, I did come across one potential connection. Once again, I found myself on the public timeline of someone’s VK.com profile. “dextromethorpan 3” had included the same photograph in a gallery of different doberman puppies posted on December 21st, 2020. This was…something. Sure, this photo likely did not originate from the VK profile I had unearthed, but at least now I knew it had been around the web for a few years. Scratching my head, I wondered how Fall Out Boy had originally come across this image. Was it something that came up on one of their feeds? Or perhaps just a keyword search? Taking it to different forms of social media, I found a potential match on the /r/doberman subreddit posted 10 months ago. Titled “Cool pic of us playing with bubbles”, the dobie in question featured strikingly similar features and color patterns, and was of course, playing with bubbles. 

So I did what any other sane fan would do… and sent a private message to the Redditor the night before the album dropped with Jen’s photograph. “/u/drc55555” responded Saturday morning agreeing that the dog did look a lot like their own, but that they didn’t recognize the photograph. I woke up in a cold sweat seeing the glimpse of the Reddit notification on my iPhone and replied informing them of the cover of Fall Out Boy’s brand new release and asking if the user was the Jen Patterson credited in the album’s booklet. A day later, they replied once again noting that they weren’t Jen, but that this has sparked a memory of another DM they had received in the fall of last year from an Elektra Records personnel, Fueled By Ramen’s distributor who Fall Out Boy had publicly rejoined the roster of just this January. Indeed, 200 days ago from this very conversation, a marketing representative from the label had reached out to the Redditor through the same platform letting them know that an artist they work with had come across the very same photo I myself found and that the artist had fallen in love with it, hoping to use it as part of the artwork for an upcoming project. /u/drc55555 had conceded that they regretted not responding at the thought of how their dog could have become famous. This is when I knew, I was HOT on the trail. Either a member of FOB discovered this photo of their dog while scrolling Reddit or had specifically sought out the same search terms as me, which meant the actual photograph used on the cover could have potentially been found through the very same method. My search accelerated and within a few hours I had run a variety of similar terms by Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, really any social media site I could get my hands on. Nothing had come up, but I hadn’t called it a day quite yet as one of the more obvious sites remained: Instagram. Heading to the explore page I have barely used in my own time on the platform, I typed in the same keywords that brought me to the pup’s uncanny match on Reddit: “doberman bubbles”. And there it was, exactly 60 rows down, right in the center, the original image of the dog I had been looking for all along along with an alternate photo of the same dog in the next slide in the same setting captioned “BUBBLES!!!!!”, posted —you guessed it, in 2020. 

—  With this case officially closed, I’m beyond stoked to introduce Blitz the Doberman to other fans of Fall Out Boy. At the time of publication, Blitz has 12.8k followers on his public Instagram account, which lead me to question how this match hadn’t already been made. Blitz’s bio reveals he was born on February 27th, 2019 and lives in Las Vegas with his human, one Jen Patterson.

In a beautiful twist of fate, within the hour of finishing the final draft of this piece, Blitz’s humans responded to my inquiry from earlier in the week. I spoke with Jen at length who was happy to share her story exclusively with The Bad Habits Collection. Similarly to the Redditor from earlier, a marketing rep from Elektra Records had reached out to her through Instagram on September 20th, 2022 inquiring about using a picture of her pup for one of their artists’ work, a message she initially regarded as spam. Eventually, she came to an agreement with Elektra, however, this story ended there for her. Up until Jen read the direct message I sent to Blitz’s account, she had not the slightest idea that he was featured on the cover of the new album of one of the biggest modern rock bands left in the world. I was shocked to hear this, but Jen on the other hand was incredibly excited to learn of the breaking news. I shared a photo with her of her name printed in the liner notes of So Much (For) Stardust, a cool moment for us both. Jen told me “I never considered myself a photographer, but that’s amazing!” When I asked about how Blitz already had such a huge following on Instagram, she told me all about how she’s networked with others in a doberman group and has kept a steady stream of posts coming on the daily. In discussion of what she’d like for others to take away from this article, Jen simply hoped others would get to know Blitz’s name —my entire goal of this investigation all along. Half-joking, she expressed that she’d also love to have gotten her hands on some merchandise with his face on it. Infinitely grateful for her responding to my DM and taking the time to talk with me, I’ve personally sent Jen physical copies of So Much (For) Stardust in both vinyl and CD format. I’ll be sure to update this write-up with a photo of FOB’s newest mascot posing with his album cover when they arrive! Closing out our conversation, Jen let me know that she “felt like if you hadn’t reached out, we would not have known.” To be honest, there were times in this journey that I thought it might be for the best if I gave up the search for this pup as to not invade anyone’s privacy. I figured if Blitz hadn’t already made himself known publicly, maybe there was a specific reason behind not doing so. I would have never guessed that reason was because his family were simply unaware of his new-found fame. I feel honored to have been the one to share this discovery with Blitz’s owners and again want to thank them for their contributions to this piece. Jen has also graciously shared the original photograph of Blitz the cover was based on in its full resolution, uncropped:

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After scouring the internet to to uncover this story, it all leads me to just one final question: Why Blitz? What’s the connection? Moreover, what’s the intended meaning here? Jen let me know that she herself was unaware of how and why the photograph was found and selected, but we can naturally draw our own conclusions. Discussing this topic with other longtime fans of the band, all have come to the same conclusion that Fall Out Boy’s latest effort features some of Pete’s bleakest lyrics in a long time paired somehow ever so perfectly with some of Patrick’s most uplifting and dance-worthy melodies to date. As my partner pointed out, the album artwork depicts a breed known for their usage as guard dogs with a tough exterior, but shown playing lightheartedly with what’s usually associated as a child’s toy. In the words of fellow Fall Out Boy historian and Bad Habits Collection collaborator Tommy McPhail, the cover displays “the epitome of boundless joy and simplified bliss amongst chaos”, a phrase that perfectly sums up the entire feeling artistically and masterfully expressed in So Much (For) Stardust in my own eyes. Fall Out Boy’s newest full-length studio record So Much (For) Stardust, produced by the legendary Neal Avron, is one of their strongest statement pieces in years and is now available everywhere music is streamed or sold. You can follow Blitz’s adventures on Instagram: @blitzdoberman —  “The kind of pain you feel to get good in the end. Inscribed like stone and faded by the rain: ‘Give up what you love before it does you in.’” Written by Alex Toor for The Bad Habits Collection

Weird boys

Dogs sure are FILTHY

Nope. Never getting over this scene of shirtless Blitz👀

From Road Rovers, Ep 3: “A Hair of The Dog that Bit You”

boris hugging blitz doberman (request)

Laundry Day doodles part 2

So I've been watching Road Rovers again, and its clearly late 90s small childrens media

But Blitz and Exile? They're the reasons I've wanted Huskys (I no longer wish to own huskys they're a lot, maybe when I'm more experienced) and Dobermans. Currently I have a sharpei mix that acts more like Muzzle than any of them.

Love that Blitz has a thing for biting people

Legoshi turned out nice.

The Story Behind the Dog on ‘So Much (For) Stardust’

Alex Toor went deep into finding out the story behind the dog on the album cover of Fall Out Boy’s So Much (for) Stardust: With this case officially closed, I’m beyond stoked to introduce Blitz the Doberman to other fans of Fall Out Boy. At the time of publication, Blitz has 12.8k followers on his public Instagram account, which lead me to question how this match hadn’t already been made. Blitz’s bio reveals he was born on February 27th, 2019 and lives in Las Vegas with his human, one Jen Patterson. --- Please consider becoming a member so we can keep bringing you stories like this one. ◎ https://chorus.fm/linked/the-story-behind-the-dog-on-so-much-for-stardust/

Progression pictures of @journifox’s birthday pictures

AU: Blitz in the Beastars world.

Initially a vain student proud of his pureblood ancestry and fencing skills, Blitz found his core ideas challenged the day he followed a certain scrawny cat to a salvage yard and witnessed first hand the dark underbelly of his world —not the Meat Market, but an underground resistance that seeks to overthrow the often corrupt Beastars system. 

For perhaps the first time in his life, this doberman learned he could put his natural sharp claws and fangs to good use, for a good cause…

Tagged by @billys-camaro!

ONE/ name/alias: Weirdlet

TWO/ Birthday: April 17

THREE/ Zodiac sign: Aries

FOUR/ Height: 5′1′’

FIVE/ Hobbies: writing, drawing (sometimes!), avoiding editing, listening to music, occasionally making bread

SIX/ Favourite colors: Prisma.  I have a Collection from when my favorite local art store went out of business and you will pry it from my cold hands.

SEVEN/ Favourite books: Oh my- um... let’s start with the Vorkosigan saga, god, what have I been actually reading lately?  Mercedes Lackey is some of my oldest comfort reading, as well as the first four books of ElfQuest.  It’s fanfic but I’ll almost always reread Thorinsmut’s stuff.

EIGHT/ Last song I listened to: You Will Never Leave Harlan Alive

NINE/ Last movie I watched:  The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Extended Edition)

TEN/ Inspiration for muse:  Someone told me I couldn’t have it, or that it couldn’t be done.  Or it was just a crack-tacular notion that really struck me with Feelings and possibly hit me in a kink.  Basically assume ‘get that out of your mouth’ is a challenge for me.

ELEVEN/ Dream job:  Independently wealthy monster-maker, novelist and relatively hands-off run a restaurant-style soup kitchen.  slip in every once in a while to make bread rolls.

TWELVE/ Meaning behind your URL:  Road Rovers had  a character named Exile who would tell Blitz (the tushy-biting-obsessed Doberman) to “Don’t be weird-boy.”  Since our family was fairly odd-ball, dad was Weird-boy, mom was Weird-lady, and I was Weirdlet.  It’s stuck ever since.

HUGE UPDATE WITH TAPES & CDZ BY PUBLIC PUBERTY/ JOHNNY R. SPYKES/ALBANY AMBUSHERZ / CRAZY DOBERMAN/ ZINES /MORE!

https://americantapes.bigcartel.com/

PUBLIC PUBERTY "SOCIETY BY PROXY"

New trio of Dober Drew Davis, Homie Daniel D Blitz & Inzane. Look at all these D's inside Puberty's ranks:

D: rew

D: avis

D: aniel

D: imaggio

D: ivorced from Music

D: report card from Music pre

D: ivorce

D: istressed callz from a Richmond duo that hired -

D: ober Drew for an afternoon of abstraction and promptly ended the session cause they wanted a "real" musician and Drew gripped his brass and

D: ipped

Utter Non Musick here / besides from a rare sound of acoustic guitar feedblack, no electronics used. Difficult spaces, difficult result. If there was a mournful strum shade to a "Incident At Owl Creek Bridge" with Edgar Allan Poe working a broken microwave on the shores in building frustration, Public Puberty would be there in the shadows, creeping wordlessly, and adding up NOTHING.

Numbered edition of 30, collage from public assumptions, handmade art.

Free Shipping in the U$A.

At request, here is some more info and movesets

Mags (she/her) ♂

- middle aged, January birthday

- Lv 72, keen eye, tall human sized

- brave bird, shadow claw, roost, tailwind

- enjoys spicy cheri berries, strict vegetarian

Sai (they/them) ?

- adult, birthday unknown

- Lv 50, cloud nine, football sized

- round, rage, dragon pulse, take down

- Pecha berries, very fussy eater

Argos (he/him) ♂

- young adult, May birthday

- Lv 22, flash fire, doberman sized

- ember, roar, bite, odor sleuth

- adores sour poffins, likes milk?

Aesop (he/him) ♂

- young adult, December birthday

- Lv 30, telepathy, small human sized

- confusion, psychic, disarming voice, heal pulse

- celery and cucumbers, hates mushy food

Decker (any) ????

- low tier immortal

- Lv 100, unknown ability, tortoise sized

- tackle, growl, vine whip, ice punch

- eats literally anything, doesn't quite get the concept

Alicia (she/her) ♀

- middle aged, July birthday

- Lv 89, flame body, eagle sized

- brave bird, flare blitz, razor wing, steel wing

- loves sweet food, opportunist eater

Flameheart (he/him) ♀

- elder, November birthday

- Lv 100, justified, tiger sized

- flamethrower, crunch, close combat, skull bash

- eats most all food, secret love of honey

Florida (she/her) ♀

- older adult, April birthday

- Lv 48, blaze, tall human sized

- smokescreen, roar, flame burst, iron tail

- loves fish, enjoys most vegetables

Blitz’s Tags, or the Icon of Adversity:

Somewhere in Arizona, you’ll find a scrapyard. No one can remember a time when the scrapyard wasn’t there, nor has anyone met the proprietor. Sometimes scrap shows up. Sometimes it leaves. As you approach the gate into the yard, two signs will stick out. One reads BEWARE OF DOG and the other reads Axel’s Scrapyard. Axel is presumed to be the owner. The former of the signs should not be taken lightly. You did arm yourself right? Good. You’ll be glad you did. Making your way through the various junk and metal, you will eventually find the building you’ve been looking for. It is a small, one room structure constructed primarily of corrugated metal. Between you and your objective will be a snarling doberman, frothing at the mouth, waiting for an excuse to rip your jugular open. You're Not squeamish about hurting dogs, are you? If you brought a gun and know how to use it, this shouldn’t be a problem. Just be sure that you’re quick on the draw. If the doberman sees you holding the firearm, it will attack with ungodly speed. If you couldn’t obtain a gun, for whatever reason, prepare for the worst. The best advice I can give you is to be absolutely ruthless. The dog certainly will be. Once the dog’s grey matter splatters the ground, you can move ahead, confident that your struggle is behind you. Within the shed you will find minimal furnishings. An unmade, twin bed lies at one side of the room, while a desk sits at the other end, with a view facing towards the singular window. There is also a punching bag near the door. In fact, you will notice posters of famous boxers from the fifties and sixties lining the walls. The desk has multiple drawers. These contain various documents, files, as well as a few pornographic magazines. In one of these drawers you will find what you seek, dog tags. Specifically the dog tags of Axel Remington. Along with the standard information, you will find the word blitz crudely carved into one of the tags. As you clench the tags in your fist, ozone will fill your nostrils and you will feel static rush through your body. From now on, as long as you hold the tags in your fist, any blow delivered with that fist will be devastating. You now possess the Icon of Adversity.

Exile, dreaming

Sometimes he remembers the endless white mountains. Ice, sleet, a dozen words for snow… not that he understood them at the time. 

Exilo Mikhailovitch SanHusky. Exile. Sled dog —a long, long time ago. Now, super-hero. 

Yet the memories come to him, sometimes, in his sleep. The long, hard work, pulling and running. Fighting for leadership, for survival. The harsh ice slapping his pads, the excitement in his heart… the howling of pleasure!! 

And the massive pillow smacking his snout, snapping him back to reality. “Wuzzat? Wha…” 

The grumpy face of the doberman next to him, too. “I don’t mind if you run in your sleep and yank the sheets away. But I draw the line at howling in my ear.” 

Exile can’t help but grin. “Was I? Sorry, sorry.” 

He pats the space next to him. “Come back. I’ll try and be quiet. Scout’s honor. Not that I was ever a scout.”

“I think you’ve been spending way too much time with Hunter,” says Blitz —but he’s smiling, and acquiesces. 

Sometimes, the simple pleasure of companionship can be even better than the joy of hard work. 

Exile, frigid.

He was not in the mood. That was the easiest way to put it —of course Blitz would understand. Sometimes you just… lose interest a bit…

“Okay, fine,” said the husky. “One more. But only one!”

“Ausgezeichnet!!” said the doberman, so joyful. “Here goes!!”

Blitz pulled the level, springing the catapult to life and launching a large ice block.

Exile intercepted it in mid-air with a perfect laser blast. The block exploded into a shower of sleet.

Oh, alright. The clapping and hooting was so worth it.

Blitz and Tappei, Breath Control

Tappei pulled open another drawer. No, the screwdriver wasn’t here either! He was about to slam it shut when he noticed the stack of papers inside. What was this? He usually kept contracts in a binder in his office, never in his room. 

Intrigued, he took out the stack —it contained something titled “Hard bodies, hard oxygen”. 

The contents were no less puzzling: A story describing a meeting between himself and an armor-clad doberman in a kind of club he only visited once in a blue moon in real life. 

Said encounter was punctuated by the use of a silver feather boa… used not as decoration, but as a garrote to temporarily restrict breathing, getting the maximum pleasure out of each erection. 

They took turns using the boa, both carefully measuring it, both shooting so many times that—

At which point Tappei moved the stack of papers to a different drawer —that by his bedside. This was something he definitely was going to read all the way to the end, on a given lonely night when he felt like trying whole new things…

✍

Blitz, from the 90’s cartoon Road Rovers. 

Something of a superhero / mutant, a doberman with retractable claws and teeth sharp enough to bite through steel. Essentially in love with himself. 

I played this character in a couple private threads and he turned out to be a lot of fun to play! His insecurities coupled with his dashing personality made him entertaining to write. Though I think I deviated a lot from the canon. But then, I often do that. 

I’d like to try playing him in a public thread sometime, I think. I even did a couple asks featuring him not that long ago.