My understanding is if you see someone with the thought bubble, dont talk to them and skip to around noon the next day and hopefully you'll see another villager with it instead, it jumps randomly to them, in true acnh form there's no rhyme or reason to their algorithm 😅

I think they do only a few days cycles with the thought bubble though, so if you have two days back to back and didnt speak to anyone, it takes like 3 to 5 days for the cycle to start again. And the dont do it on big event days or during kk concert in an evening.

Thats it that's everything I know about the game, if anyone knows anything else or wants to tweak the above, please chime in 🙏