You aren't really contradicting me, I agree that Rust isn't a great language for prototyping. However, there are some solutions that help with prototyping, namely: judicious use of Clone‚ Arc, Rc, and unsafe.

In particular, if your comparison point is C and Zig and you don't care about safety you could use unsafe, knowing you are likely triggering UB, and be in mostly the same position as you would in C or Zig.