u/TeacupOfSkepticism

Hello everyone. I'm in the middle of writing a science fiction novel and would appreciate some input regarding an arc related to the mental health of one of the main characters.

He's unwittingly on a space adventure, being taken to an alien planet. As he approaches the planet, his anxiety has been increasing, and it seems like he's heading for some sort of mental collapse.

He's now landed on the planet. After about 30 seconds, he's exposed to an alien atmosphere containing xenon, which is meant to reduce anxiety. I'm going to have it turn off his fight-or-flight response completely.

The question is how to approach that transition so it doesn't feel too abrupt or as though the xenon is contrived. Logically, he won't immediately realise that his fight-or-flight response has disappeared. He might initially think it's just a lull in his anxiety, and the alien captain might think the same.

The sequence I've written so far is that he gets off the ship, encounters the alien atmosphere, and is still anxious and nauseous. He vomits, and because of the denser atmosphere, the vomit floats for a while. Watching this gives him a distraction—a weird enough thing to focus on—and by then, he's had enough time for the xenon to take effect.

From that point on, he's fine anxiety-wise.

I'm wondering how best to approach this transition in the prose: should I explicitly describe his lack of anxiety, or would it work better to let the change emerge through his actions and the inferences of the other characters?

You buy a suburban house. When you move in you discover that your back garden is far longer than you thought. It's 10 metres wide but because it amused the developer it's 1km long. An awkward hectare.

I feel this would be fair

Gravity is supposed to keep things on Earth but still loads of hydrogen and helium is escaping I believe. I noticed these elements have the smallest particles and therefore it's logical to assume that they are missed as Earth's gravity can't always see them due to being small. How can we fix this?

Anagram Lad

We hired a house improvement team to improve our house but didn't realise they were non-euclidean builders who made our bathroom larger than half the houses on our street combined. The facilities are over 200 metres away from the door. I may have to set up a miniature railway to get to the toilet an

I saw a video where an American man was talking about the country's four fathers. How can over 300 million people of all ages be the offspring of four men?

How can we be more supportive of the air around our planet and the molecules it contains? How can we support the gases in achieving their personal goals and finding fulfilment?

Mark and Darryl made a venn diagram.

Butt print madlad

How many solar farms do we need to a grow a replacement sun for when ours burns out?

Clothes stores always stock T-shirts but what about the other types of shirts. As T is the 20th letter of the alphabet it stands to reason there are at least 19 other types of shirt out there. Where are they?

I had a haircut yesterday. I had long hair for ages and wanted to go short so asked the guy to take off half the length. I guess he's new as he cut off the wrong half. I now have a bald head and long hair floating around the sides of my head that is practically impossible to brush.

Mime Town

SLPT. Concerned about the cost of the bill for your landline phone? Never hang up your phone. They can't charge you until the call is finished.

New jar after a few days

Tensegrity skyscraper

Relaxatives

I bought some wood glue. On it bottle it referred to it as all purpose. It was a fine pine adhesive but was downright awful as a toothpaste or bear repellent. How do I sue these charlatans?

Trying to write an emotional transition with a character in my sci-fi novel.

Lovely little cordial. Pairs nice with a simple maraca solo.