eatin a fishies

Me, internally: The way the opioid crisis has been flattened to make the Sackler family and Purdue Pharmaceuticals the cause is actually one of the best examples of how the rich and powerful operate as a class, choosing one of their own to sacrifice to save the rest of their skins. Purdue and the Sacklers committed an evil act, intentionally selling addictive pills to hundresd of thousands, but nobody seems to ever ask what happened that so swelled the number of people in the United States who needed opioids in the 1990s, because doing so would require acknowledging that the healthcare system in the United States is an utter failure, particularly the lack of guaranteed paid sick leave, so people are forced to finish recovery from excruciating injuries and accidents while still working, which greatly increases their chances of developing an addiction to those painkillers.

I know it is quite canon, but I'm fed up of art that's just "human but marbled skin". I prefer to see representations of the fact we can build relations with and work with those who have had different experiences than us. I think it would be far more interesting if he narrative was more explicit with certain aspects of that. Similar to how it's revealed in WaT that Chasmfiends are sapient.

So. I will be going down the list of Rachel’s obscene abilities and why he absolutely shouldn’t have been killed by anyone except a herald(even this is questionable with just power potential by the way), and that he is a total dumbass for losing to vin.

1.) Virtually infinite speed

I do not think anyone is processing how genuinely broken compounding speed is, but Rashek can actually do better than compounding speed. He can compound speed, AND BURN DURALUMIN. This man can move so fast, he would probably make most speedsters in fiction look like snails. You know all those posts about how the flash should never lose in any fight because speed is just so op? Yea. We have blown past that territory by like a mile. I genuinely think this guy can move fast enough that the force of his passing would cause significant environmental damage. I don’t know how busted a duralumin boosted compounding would be, but the speed alone could easily level cities as long as doesn’t kill himself.

2.) Obscenely powerful allomancy

The lord ruler was shown on several occasions to push metal in someone’s body. I do not think this was duralumin, because I think using duralumin would instantly make him into a fetus because of his atium compounding. (This is one of his major flaws, and he could have been immortal easier. Every lack of duralumin use is part of the massive fumble) However, that means that his basic steel pushes were leagues above everyone else. We already saw this with his soothing, but this raises some interesting points. The lord ruler might be able to push and pull shardplate, or possibly shardblades. Maybe even the honor blades. He certainly could with duralumin. It pulls into question, how high his upper limit with duralumin actually is. His flared pewter was enough to slap the skin off of Kelsier face, killing him instantly. It might have been enough to burn him but I don’t have the specific line pulled up to check how his corpse was described. Regardless, these are obscene raw power levels.

3.) Healing factor

I’m not sure if I even need to delve that deep into this one. This makes Deadpool and wolverine’s healing factors look like jokes. We already saw how disgustingly busted this is with a normal compounder like Miles Hundred Lives. But the lord ruler can store far more, has access to more gold, and presumably burn it more potently than miles could. Also, normal gold can heal shardblade wounds. Which makes shardblades probably as useless as other weapons against a compounder. For a reminder, the only reason vin was able to rip the metal minds from the lord rulers skin was because she was tapping into the infinite power of a shard. And even then, if the lord ruler had been more smart about his metal minds, this wouldn’t have worked. It could have easily thrown Rashek backwards instead.

4.) My guy was canonically a savant in every metal

This one isn’t brought up enough. Being a savant lets you do things you absolutely shouldn’t be able to do. Like wax with the steel bubble, or spook with tin. The lord ruler could do far far more techniques than everyone else, not just raw power.

5.) chromium.

This one is generally overlooked for mistborn in general, by the fanbase and the books. This is a disgusting power. Actually insane. To be able to wipe a radiant of their stormlight, or other potentially more drastic things, like wipe an awakener of all their breaths. I’m not sure how far the investiture wipe extends. It’s entirely possible it could wipe Feruchemical stores, or destroy bonds with spren. A lot of these are probably not possible for a *normal* chromium burner. But Rashek is again, far more powerful than them, and a savant for all metals. The fact that he never uses this makes me suspect he does not know of any of the enhancement metals existence, but that is another major flaw and absolutely his fault.

So. We have the fastest character in the entire cosmere, completely unkillable as long as he is trying, able to kill highly invested people in a single blow, 1000 years to grow proficient at all his insane powers, and able to make a vast swath of his opponents powerless with a touch.

I fully believe that someone competent with these powers would have a genuine chance over most of the heralds in a one on one fight, except for taln and ishar.

I want to learn the ways you've abstracted the hungry absence that you're convinced yourself you cannot feed enough to sate. I want to look into the hidden corners of that ragged, septic, half-scabbed wound for the spots your lonely fingers reach when the ache gets too big or too small.

I want to experience it all, memorise it all, simply to know how to put you face to face with the love I wish to share with you - that you cannot fathom unless I drown it in purple prose and awkward, banal absurdity, until the acidity of its change leaves my heart pitted and barely shaking.

I'll learn because I want you to see my love in a way you'll recognise, a way you'll be unable to look away from the sheer size of, that will dwarf your shaking boots and drown out your half formed claims of being 'undeserving.'

And then you get used to them. You go yeah they're obsessed with bones but it's like literally normal. Every culture can have things that seem strange, even unsettling to outsiders, but is actually totally benign, and here's it's bones. It's literally superficial. People die and they reuse their skeletons and it's just recycling.

And then you get to Canaan House and you realise. No one else in this world is like this. It's literally just them.

And to the other Houses you're like, guys, chill. They're literally just wearing skull make-up, stop being rude.