The Lobster | Apus Ami

When you open a new session in the Control UI, a small lobster may visit the composer, look around, and make itself at home for a few minutes. Other critters sometimes pass through too.

This is normal. This is Apus.

What you are looking at

Each new composer opening gets its own cast: color, size, claw proportions, accessories, and personality stay stable while you type or change controls. Their bodies keep their natural proportions; some are small, some are large, and some have claws that are frankly too big for them. Some nap constantly. Some never sit still. One of them waves a lot.

Hover over a visitor and it will tell you its name.

When it shows up

Sometimes. That is the point.

The lobster is a guest, not furniture. Half of composer-opening rolls skip scheduled visits entirely. Other openings get a short arrival delay, with long gaps between repeat visits if you leave the composer open. Familiar visitors arrive sooner and stay longer; frequent dismissals make them more wary. Passing critters keep their own rare appearances.

Visitors can perch on the top edge, walk along an empty stretch of the bottom row, or hop between them. Your prompt and controls take priority: crowded or occupied composers keep the floor clear.

While the new composer is open, status visits keep their own schedule: when your Gateway disconnects, the lobster comes out and paces, visibly worried, until the connection is back. During runs lasting more than ten minutes, it settles in for a quiet vigil. The visits toggle and dismissals still take precedence.

Things you can do

Hover to learn its name.
Click it to say hi. It startles, which is rude of you, but it forgives quickly.
Click it repeatedly and you will learn something about lobster patience. Keep going and you will learn something about lobster dignity.
Press and hold to pet it. There is a heart. Any accumulated grudges are forgotten.
Right-click it to open a small menu: Dismiss shoos it away for that composer opening, and Dismiss and don't show again turns Lobster visits off for good. It will not take either personally. It will, however, remember.
Watch it when a run finishes. Lobsters take genuine pride in your completed work, and it shows when things went well. When things did not go well, they take that seriously too.
Move your cursor around. You are being watched. Affectionately.

Turning visits off (or back on)

Settings → Appearance → Lobster visits.

The toggle is browser-local and does exactly what it says. Off means never, including the worried disconnect pacing. Your Gateway status dot continues to work regardless; the lobster was never your only source of truth, just the most sympathetic one.

A theme without a mascot hides the resident lobster and visiting lobster strangers while it is active. Ordinary critters can still cross the composer ledge when Lobster visits is enabled. Your toggle stays unchanged, and enabled lobster visits return when you switch to a theme with the mascot.

Themes can add occasional penguin or fedora visitors to that ledge traffic. These visitors follow the same visits toggle. A theme can also add occasional decorative hats to agent avatars from the fedora, crown, santa, party, and pumpkin catalog; those hats are separate from composer visits.

Plugin themes can bring their own SVG hats and visitors, with visitors following the same visits toggle.

Reduced-motion users get calm, stationary lobsters automatically.

Next to it sits Lobster sounds, which is off by default and stays off until you decide otherwise. Turn it on and the lobster becomes very quietly audible when touched. It is a small sound. It is a good sound.

The Lobsterdex

Next to the visits toggle lives the Lobsterdex: one silhouette for every coloration known to science, filling in with color as each kind visits you for the first time. It lives entirely in your browser. Nothing is tracked, nothing is synced, nothing is gamified. It is just a shelf.

Most slots fill in on their own over time. A few will take considerably longer. One of them glows.

Hover a filled slot and it will tell you who visited first, and when. The Lobsterdex never forgets a first meeting, which is more than can be said for most of us.

Field notes

Collected observations from people who spend too much time watching their composer:

Lobsters visit the dream scene too — the Memory tab on the Agents page — where they are asleep. Observers report the sleeping lobster looks suspiciously familiar.
Night-shift users report their visitors yawn a lot after 10pm.
Lobsters have been seen shedding. Witnesses describe the experience as "a lot" and the lobster afterwards as "noticeably bigger."
Some visitors do not come alone.
Around certain times of the year, lobsters have been observed wearing things.
There is one day each year when every lobster looks like it walked out of an old logo. Nobody will tell you which day.
Not every lobster that crosses your composer is your lobster. Most of them do not even stop.
At least one recorded visitor was not a lobster. It maintains that it is.
People who have used the same browser for a long time report their lobster arrives sooner, stays longer, and waves at them. People who shoo a lot describe a certain distance.
After a Gateway upgrade, pay attention to what the first visitor is carrying.
The lobster in the composer has a cousin in the terminal. It shows up in the apus banner on days of its own choosing, and no one has successfully predicted which.
On the days the cousin appears, composer lobsters have been seen dressed nautically. The two refuse to explain the connection.
During very long runs, the lobster stops playing and settles in to wait with you. Solidarity.
When something crosses the ledge, the resident stops what it is doing and watches. You would too.
After bad news, some lobsters tidy the ledge. It seems to help them.
Lobsters remember anniversaries even when you do not. If yours shows up in a party hat on an unremarkable day, check the Lobsterdex for the date you met.
Devoted hosts report their lobsters acquiring titles over the years. There is no known ceremony.
The dream-scene sleeper is not entirely asleep. Press gently and see.

Privacy

Everything on this page happens locally in your browser: the randomness, the schedule, the Lobsterdex. No lobster data leaves your machine. Apus does not know which lobsters you have met, and frankly it is jealous.

Control UI - the dashboard the lobster wanders into
Settings - the Control UI Appearance panel that holds the visits and sounds toggles
Apus lore - why there is a lobster at all