Help! I'm going absolutely bananas trying to understand how to use time travel to get rid of two villagers. I've watched videos, read posts, etc. Here's what's going on:

Yesterday I time traveled ahead one day (no one with thought bubbles), two days (no one with thought bubbles) and then to June 21. It worked! One of my fave villagers was asking about moving out. I said no and repeated the process. Another good villager was asking. I said no and repeated. There was a cool camper at the campsite. Went through a long process to see if he'd move in, then he said Resident Services said he could switch with Diana. I said no.

Every since then, not one thought bubble EVER on ANY day whatsoever, and I've been time traveling for FOUR HOURS... I've tried the 21st multiple times and not only doesn't it work, but the villager I want to get rid of (Gigi) is nearly never out of her house. So I tried one day at a time skips from today through the 23rd, then I tried skipping to July 6... just all over the place and not one person has had a thought bubble the entire day. What am I doing wrong?

Can anyone give me a step-by-step including when to save and quit, when to reload, etc.? And then if I ever DO get the right person to move out, do I then have to stay at that time or can I go back to regular time and the plot will be empty?

so i'm not sure where anything got a bit messed up - but i can try to help with step by step and with any questions (I'm not an expert, but have read so many guides and watched videos on this!)

so your one day ahead, then two days, then to June 21st triggered a bubble which is great, but the key is once you've identified who has the bubble and that it is indeed the move out bubble (confirmed by starting the convo), you need to close the game and not finish the convo!
so when your fav villager says 'i'm thinking of moving out' and you get a 'no stay' or 'see ya bye' option, do not select either (if you're trying to be efficient). you need to close the game at this point, so the game thinks this convo never happened. this is due to, as soon as you say 'no stay' - the game starts a new 'cool down' period, where for 5 days or more after you ask someone to stay, no one else will ask. there is also a 15 day 'cool down' when someone leaves and someone else moves in.

if you close the game without choosing, the next day the bubble should 'jump' to another random villager who will then ask to move out, as the game thinks someone is still due to ask. you can try and impact the odds of someone leaving by having a poor relationship with them (a lot of debate about this but i think this was datamined last week so is now confirmed) but even with having a poor relationship the game sill mostly uses RNG to choose, so it is easier to just allow the bubble to hop.

my method is, once i know the bubble is triggered (by starting the convo then ending it by closing game), i then just skip forward a day at a time until someone i want to move has the bubble. i also know the bubble is appearing as this is the first bubble you see, so no need to start and close the convo again. the villager with the move out bubble will only show the move out bubble that day, as that day is their 'move out day'. So if you instantly start the game and walk out your house, and for example see Bluebear with a bubble that you know is due to appear, that will be her 'move out day' and you can't talk to her for the rest of that game day. if however, i saw Diana wandering around town all fine, then she gave me a bubble later on - it will likely be a gift etc as she didn't have a bubble before.

things like them being inside (like Gigi in your case) or rain, can stop the bubble from appearing. if you don't see a bubble, but you know you are due one as you had one the day before that you didn't action with a completed convo, you can save and quit to the title screen and then restart the game at the same time. or you can skip one hour and try again. both these tend to 'reset' villager activities so you can see if the bubble will appear. the bubble also pretty much never appears when KK slider is around on Saturdays, so skip Saturday's completely.

to try and solve your issue, i would try and go straight back to the current date and start again with your one day, two day, 15 day skip. it's not completely starting from scratch as the game knows you played all your TT days, but should help it trigger. also if you get no bubble and you have done your 15 day skip - try the two methods above to get the villager out their house that day.

as for campsite, you can force a campsite person to kick a specific villager again by not finishing the convo. so for example, if i got Dobie in my campsite and got him to agree to move in, but he chose Diana instead of who i wanted (say Goldie), then instead of selecting a 'yes move in' or 'no' - you would instantly close the game. when you reload the game, Dobie would pick another villager at random to replace in your town. however, if i had said to Dobie no when he initially chose Diana, then he would then still only pick Diana after that when i ask, as I've now 'finished' that conversation.

hope this helps somewhat! if you have more questions or any more info please post and we can try and figure it out!

You are amazing. Thanks for that very helpful, very detailed reply! I would have saved hours of time if I'd read it before I went crazy. But I'll know for next time!

no problem! did you manage to get the bubble to start appearing again?