Midnight Pals: Fitness (Patreon)

[at the beach]
Sonia Greene: oh howard this was such a lovely idea!
Greene: a romantic seaside picnic and just the two of us!
Greene: and we've got your favorite food right here - untoasted white bread!
Greene: isn't this nice?
HP Lovecraft: [sweats, stares at ocean] right sure

HP Lovecraft: Hey! Quit kicking sand in our faces!
Sonia Greene: that man is the worst nuisance on the beach!
Aleister Crowley: [grabbing Lovecraft] listen here, I'd smash your face, only you're so skinny you might dry up and blow away!

Crowley: [to greene, as he manhandles lovecraft] look babe, why don't you drop that zero and get with the hero
Crowley: i'll show you how a real man kicks sand in people's faces!
Crowley: THE GREAT BEAST!!! DO AS THOU WILLT!!!!

Lovecraft: The big bully! I'll get even some day!
Greene: oh don't let it bother you, little boy
Greene: i'll fix you up a nice big meal, put some meat on those bones
Lovecraft: and that'll help me build muscle?
Greene: [sweats] um muscle? um sure yeah muscle

Poe: howard, you need to stop letting aleister pick on you
Lovecraft: but he's twice my size! he's all buff cuz of all the mountain climbing!
Poe: you could start working out?
Lovecraft: you mean physical labor?
Lovecraft: sport?!
Lovecraft: [sweats] like a common cornishman?!?

Poe: you should try it
Poe: a good regimen of rowing and swimming helped me build mass
Barker: oh come on edgar
Poe: no really!
Poe: [removes shirt, revealing he is super swole]
Barker:
Barker: oh right
Barker: right i forgot about that

Mary Shelley: listen up nerd you don't need exercise
Shelley: what you need is one of these [flips switchblade]
Poe: oh come on mary, what if he gets attacked when he doesn't have knife on him?
Shelley: dunno, that's never come up

Shelley: next time aleister gives you shit, you give him one of these [pantomimes shivving]
Poe: mary, violence never solved anything
Shelley: it does if you're good at it
Poe:
Barker: ah ha ha she's got you there edgar

Lovecraft: Darn it! I'm sick and tired of being a scarecrow! William Hope Hodgson says he can give me a real body. all right! i'll gamble a stamp and get his free book
Lovecraft: i'll just not eat this week to afford the stamp

William Hope Hodgson: are you "fed up" with seeing the huskies walk off with the best of everything?
Hodgson: sick and tired of being soft, frail, skinny or flabby?
Hodgson: i know because i myself was once a puny 97 pound "runt"
Hodgson: today, I am two separate gorillas

Hodgson: give me 5 weeks and my body building plan will turn YOU into the bronzed adonis you were meant to be
Hodgson: through a dynamic combination of cardiovascular training, lifting big kegs, and standing in the desert while getting your balls tanned by an ultraviolet machine

Lovecraft: wow, how's you get so buff??
Hodgson: from constant brawling during my navy days
Lovecraft: w-wait
Lovecraft: you're a sailor??
Hodgson: yeah you should know from my popular lecture series about how much the navy fuckin sucks ass
Lovecraft: [sweats]

Hodgson: ugh, i tell you
Hodgson: it's just impossible to pay the bills with pseudoscience fitness programs catering to mens' insecurities
Hodgson: i'm gonna pivot to weird fiction instead
Hodgson: that's where the big money is

Hodgson: what if a bunch of pig men attacked a big house
Smith: [on phone] hey clark ashton? it's me! your cousin! marvin smith!
Smith: you know that new horror genre you're been looking for?
Smith: well, listen to this! [aims phone at hodgson]