Hey I was at a convention all weekend

it was in Indianapolis and it was called Gen Con

maybe some of you were also there.

While I was there I got to play a really great round of a really great RPG

run by a dude who turned out to know MORE ABOUT MYTHOLOGY THAN ME

(he has a cool tumblr that you can read)

after rapping a good portion of the Odyssey for me

he told me about a mythological baddass I’d never heard of

whose tale I must now pass on to you.

This dude is known as THE BLACK BEETLE.

But for the purposes of this post

we are going to call him by his non-anglicized name, Besouro

because when you try to search THE BLACK BEETLE on google

you end up with this clown



and he has absolutely nothing to do with our story.

So Besouro gets born in Brazil in the 1890s

and his parents make the HUGE mistake

of being black in Brazil in the 1890s

which means that Beouro also turns out black

which means that as far as the colonial government of Brazil is concerned

his main job is to do things he hates

in order to make other (not black) dudes rich

normally this would be called slavery

but Brazil just officially outlawed slavery

so it’s just …

a really bad deal?

Besouro is not a dude who is down with really bad deals

so he gets an old ex-slave dude to teach him Capoeira

(the art of dancing people to death)

and then when he is old enough

he takes justice into his own hands

also his own feet

mostly his feet, actually

Capoeira is mainly kicks

Now, normally one mostly-naked lord of the dance

would have trouble humiliating the entire Brazilian police force

but Besouro has a secret

a secret which is buried in his INCREDIBLY SWEET NAME.

See, the reason he’s called “Besouro” (aka “THE BLACK BEETLE”)

is because he can turn into a black beetle when he’s in trouble

and just fly away.

beetles are pretty slow at flying though

(prolly would have been better if he’d called himself BLACK FALCON or BLACK JET PLANE)

but he also has a last name

Manganga

which means “Totally immune to bullets.”

GUYS

EXCUSE ME WHILE I GO CHANGE MY LAST NAME

But it’s not as easy as just changing your name, my friends

in order to net this sweet bullet immunity

Besouro had to make a deal with Eshu himself

yes that’s right

ESHU

PAPA LEGBA

THE CIGAR-SMOKING DICK TRAIN WHO LIVES SOLELY TO FUCK WITH PEOPLE

IN EVERY SENSE OF THE WORD.

So yeah, Eshu hits up Besouro one day and he’s like “dude

I would love to see some crooked cops get kicked in the mouth

bow down to me and I will make this shit happen.”

and Besouro is initially a little wary of making this deal

but then Eshu hands him his ass in a fight

and Besouro is like “Okay fine

but only because I really like kicking crooked cops in the mouth.”

and Eshu is like “Awesome.

Here’s what we’re gonna do:

me and my pals

– that is, the other Orisha –

are going to give you what is called a closed body

because, see

the reason bullets go into most people’s bodies

is because those bodies are like ‘hey, door’s open, come right in.’

whereas your body is gonna be like ‘hell no, go away’

it is what we like to call

THE ORIGINAL LIFE HACK.”

So for about seven years

that’s all Besouro roams from town to town

humiliating the constabulary with his invincibility

and then turning into a beetle when shit gets too real.

Like, they send a dozen cops after him

and he just takes all their guns

and then shows up to the police station later

with a shopping cart full of guns

like “Here you go guys

I figured you might need these

for arresting someone who is NOT IMMUNE TO FUCKING BULLETS.”

The police don’t really believe the whole bullet immunity thing

because let’s face it, it’s kind of a ridiculous thing to believe

but years go by

and Besouro is just stomping sternums with impunity

and black people are getting disconcertingly independent

and this whole time nobody has hit him with any bullets

so finally the police are like “You know what

we’ve been firing our guns constantly at this guy

for like half a decade

not even Imperial Storm Troopers are this inaccurate.

Maybe … we should use magic?”

So this arch-dickhead named Doutor Zeca talks to a wizard or something

and finds out that whereas Besouro is immune to bullets

the protection does not extend to wooden knives

so he calls up Besouro

and … asks him to deliver a letter to another dude.

So Besouro delivers this letter

which basically says “Dear other dude:

please kill the guy who brought you this letter

he is weak against wooden knives

also prostitutes.

Love, Doutor Zeca.”

Okay, I may be missing something

but WHY ARE EVIL DUDES ALWAYS SENDING LETTERS LIKE THIS?

It happens in Hamlet

it happens in Greek Mythology

are kings just super nervous about getting their hands dirty?

if so, wouldn’t the kings they’re sending these dudes to be just as murder-averse?

maybe every king has one really violent friend

and that’s the dude they send all their enemies to.

I dunno

the point is that Besouro can’t read

so he doesn’t know what he’s getting into

and then his host buys him some sex

(because Besouro isn’t invincible if he gets laid right before a fight)

and then kills him with like 40 dudes

some of whom have wooden knives.

It sucks

but at least he gets a couple songs named after him

also, slavery eventually ends for real

kind of?

Anyway, the moral of the story

is always bring a wooden knife to a gunfight.

The end.