"Drat," I thought to myself. "Drat is short for Dratthew," the unhelpful part of my mind piped up helpfully. I thought this was hilarious, but didn't ponder it further.

A few days later, I'm washing my hands and... "Jeez Louise!" I think, noting the water splash on my dress - "Cottage cheese!" the same voice chimes in cheerfully.

I - These were distinct words. When I think to myself, I mean I'm sounding out these words in my head in my own voice as I type them, but for the most part it's a quiet murmur of instincts and thoughts. Rarely are there actual conscious sentences "spoken" - sure, when I'm inconvenienced I might "speak" a swearword, but since I've been staying with my parents for the last fortnight, I can't swear like I would at home and often have to consciously substitute swearwords for inoffensive phrases if I'm gonna vent my frustration out loud physically.

There's been lots of (bubble!) ... Hubbub... ...recently, about internal dialogue and whether one thinks in pictures, sentences or a combination of the two. I was never really able to relate to the question since I've never experienced anything outside of my normal, until now.

If it weren't for the casual inclusion of this sub and its ilk in my everyday Reddit buffet, I wouldn't have thought anything further of it, but I'm staying receptive and open-minded! The last time I tried tulpaforcing seriously was in 2014, but I think I was probably trying too hard in retrospect. I think (we both?) feel more comfortable just letting it happen and seeing where it takes us.

At "Cottage cheese!", I stopped and listened in surprise. I looked at the pump bottle of hand-soap as I thought. "Is your name... Nourishing?", reading the words and thinking of the Terry Pratchett novel The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. "..Nah," I felt with the inclination of a grin. "Is it Cherry?", picking another word off the bottle, realising that Cherry was the name of one of my Animal Crossing villagers. The personality and aesthetic of the villager didn't seem to match what was emerging, and I could tell Cherry wasn't a perfect fit either, but I got the sense that it would do for the time being. So, Cherry is the arrangement, for the time being.

So there we go! Wasn't expecting that.