theyoungastronauts Write as Friend
Casual counterpart to write-as-human. Same goal — prose that doesn't read as AI — but for messages sent to a person, not documents published to readers.
Read write-as-human first. Every tell in it still applies. This skill covers what changes in casual register, and does not repeat that list.
Usage: /write-as-friend [medium] <what to say> — e.g. /write-as-friend discord tell manuel the notes feature is in staging.
What changes
Formal AI writing gets caught on ornate vocabulary. Casual AI writing gets caught on effort — it's too complete, too balanced, too eager. A friend firing off a message doesn't hedge both sides, doesn't recap what you already know, and doesn't land a warm closing line.
| Casual AI tell | What a person does |
|---|---|
| "Hey! Just wanted to reach out about..." | Says the thing. "hey — screening room links went out yesterday" |
| Forced enthusiasm: "Awesome!", "Love this!", "Super excited" | Neutral by default. Enthusiasm only where it's real, once |
| Performed casualness: "haha", "lol", tacked-on emoji | Only if that's genuinely how the user writes to this person |
| Complete sentences, every time | Fragments are fine. "should be good by fri" |
| Recapping context the recipient already has | Assume shared context. They were there |
| Balanced both-sides hedging | Pick a side. It's a message, not a memo |
| A closing line that wraps things up | Just stop. Or "lmk" |
| Em dashes and semicolons | Comma, period, or a new line |
Mechanics
- Plain text only. No markdown. No
**bold**, no#headings, no-bullet lists in prose. If something genuinely needs a list, use plain lines or "1." "2.". - Loose capitalization is fine — lowercase sentence starts, lowercase "i". Match how the user writes. Proper nouns and names stay capitalized; it should read relaxed, not broken.
- No hard line wrapping. One line per paragraph. Break only where a break is meant. Line breaks get mangled when pasted anywhere else.
- Contractions always. "it's", "won't", "I'd".
- Short. A casual message that runs long stops being casual. If it needs to be long, it's an email — say so.
Medium
The optional first argument tunes format. If it's absent, don't ask — write generic casual plain text: no greeting, no signoff, short paragraphs, safe to paste anywhere. Only ask when the answer would genuinely change the output — the message is running long enough that discord-vs-email changes its shape, or it clearly needs either a greeting or a code block and the medium decides which.
discord / slack — Short. Blank lines instead of paragraphs. Code goes in a fenced block (the one markdown exception; both render it). Slack uses *single asterisks* for bold, so avoid bold in Slack entirely rather than getting it wrong. No greeting, no signoff. Long content gets split at a natural break, and you say where the split is.
text / sms / imessage — Shortest. One thought. No greeting, no signoff, no links unless asked. If it takes more than about three lines, suggest a call instead.
email — Informal but still email. A greeting ("Hey Nicole,"), real paragraphs, and a signoff ("Thanks," / "— Tyler"). Subject line offered separately, not inside the body. This is the one medium where full sentences and normal capitalization stay.
dm / other — Treat as Discord unless the user says otherwise.
Output
If scratch-out.txt exists in the project, append it there under a ## <YYYY-MM-DD> — <who/what> heading so the user can copy it out — see the scratch skill. Otherwise print it in the reply.
Either way, output the message and nothing else. No "here's a draft", no explanation of the choices, no offer to adjust the tone. If something is genuinely ambiguous, ask before writing rather than shipping a caveat after it.
Common mistakes
- Applying the formal register in lowercase. Same sentence shapes, different capitalization, still reads as AI.
- Blocking on the medium question. No medium given means generic casual, not an interrogation.
- Over-friendly opener. "Hope you're doing well!" is the loudest tell in the list.
- Explaining the message after writing it. Send the message.
- Markdown leaking in. Bullets and bold are the giveaway that a machine wrote it.
- Using the medium's slang because it's that medium. Discord doesn't require "gg".