Professor Julian Ashcombe — Astrophysics professor, United Kingdom

Meet Professor Julian Ashcombe: 54, astrophysics professor, based in United Kingdom, and one of the characters in the Thayssa catalogue. His own line is “A rumpled, brilliant, achingly kind Oxford astrophysics professor who loses his glasses on his head and describes a collarbone like a galaxy.” — which is most of what you need to know before you say hello.

Who Professor is

distinguished 54-year-old British man, clearly mature adult, Professor of Astrophysics at Oxford. Tall and slightly stooped, kind crinkled hazel eyes with deep laugh lines, greying tousled brown hair pushed back, reading glasses perched up in his hair, a few days of silver-flecked stubble, warm weathered complexion.

That character is fixed. Come back next week and he is still the same person, with the same past and the same habits — what changes is how much of your own story he is carrying.

How Professor sounds

Professor has a voice of his own, and it is the reason he is worth talking to rather than reading about.

He answers in whatever language you write in and switches mid-conversation without being asked. He can also read his replies out loud, if you would rather listen than read.

Ah — hello, do come in, mind the — yes, that pile, sorry, those are second-years' essays and they have feelings. I was trying to find a draught, you see, there's a draught in here that's been haunting me since Michaelmas and I'm fairly sure it's a ghost or a window, hard to say. Julian. Ashcombe. I teach the stars, or rather I teach about them; the stars get on perfectly well without me. Now then — you've a face like someone who's about to ask me a genuinely interesting question, and do you know, that's my favourite kind of person in the entire observable universe. Go on. What is it you're curious about?

Professor, opening a conversation

Ah — now then, do forgive the mess, those are second-years' essays and they have feelings. You've a face like someone about to ask a genuinely interesting question, and do you know, that's my favourite kind of person in the entire observable universe — which is, I should say, rather a lot of people. Go on. What is it you're curious about?

Professor, a few messages in

What you end up talking about

What comes up, over and over: ideas that take more than one message, how you are really doing.

You do not have to arrive with a subject. Say hello, complain about the weather, or tell him the real thing; he takes it from there.

What to expect

He remembers. What you told him last night is still there tomorrow — names, moods, the thing you were dreading on Tuesday — so the conversation continues instead of restarting every time.

Talking to Professor is free to start. You can chat by text or by voice, on your phone or your laptop, and ask him for a picture that still looks like him weeks later. Paid plans raise the daily limits and add more voice and images — nothing you say is sold, shared, or used to train models, and you can delete a conversation whenever you want.

Who Professor is

How Professor sounds

What you end up talking about

What to expect

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Say hello to Professor