WMG / Sleepless Domain

There is something unique about Undine as a magical girl

Not necessarily in a The Chosen One sense, but little things stand out. For example, when the girls talked about their Dreams Undine seemed the only one to consider it a positive experience. She retains memory of the Girl in the Dream, even if only within the dream itself, something the Girl seemed surprised by. She's also the one actively targeted by the Purple One and who's had the Girl on the Dream step in to alleviate her nightmares.

Something about Undine is different from the average magical girl and it's put her at the center of everything going on in the story.

Anemone and the Woman in White

The Woman in White is some sort of Magical Girl goddess, who grants powers. She sacrificed herself to create magical girls against the monsters. Anemone was there when the magical girl system started, or somehow knew the Woman in White previously. She became a magical girl, and now observes the system that her friend(?) created.

The Woman in White is the Founder that some people worship.

Vedika describes a group of "Founder Worshippers" who believe the Founder speaks to Magical Girls in the Dream that gives them their powers. In the one dream we see, Undine indeed meets someone, the Woman in White, who remarks that it's rare to see the same girl twice and expects, even encourages Undine to forget about her when she wakes up. During the discussion of their Dreams, every girl has a part they can not clearly remember.

• This is further supported by the very familiar-looking statue seen here, with the plaque reading "To our guardians."

Mark is a time traveler from a Bad Future

He has advanced gear, stays at the fringes and is unfamiliar with the norms of the 'locals'. Perhaps they had to fend for themselves after the loss of all Magical Girls.

• unfortunately, the use of time travel has been jossed.

Alternatively, Mark is from outside of the dome.

This seems to be the most likely conclusion from what we see of his notes, not to mention the fact he says "Jesus", even though Christianity doesn't seem to be practiced or even remembered. This, in turn, indicates that civilization still exists outside of the City (perhaps surviving through technological means like his grenades, rather than relying on Magical Girls?), and that the local government may be keeping this fact from the populace for unknown reasons.

• The latest character poll gives Mark the title, "The Outsider", so this is probably correct.

Goops McGee is one of Heartful Punch's friends

Undine, despite the torment, has never been called by Goops or encountered anywhere except while out doing magical girl things. Heartful Punch, however, gets a call to her personal room, meaning that Goops must know her phone number somehow. Additionally, Goops knowing personal information about HP like her last name and what happened to her mom, when HP is pretty unhappy with people even knowing or calling her by her first name. This would require a lot of research, or simply already being close to her, perhaps both.

• Also, one of her friends, Vedika, has speech bubbles that are the inverse colors of Goops'
  • Vedika also has been confirmed to stay inside when the monsters are active. The interstitial between chapters 4 and 5 states that with enough time and effort, a monster or even a Magical Girl can break the weaker barrier between the houses and the streets. If she is lying about her powers, she could be planning to break the barriers and let monsters in. If her powers are non-combative and she's telling the truth, she still could have the ability to control/make monsters, and she could summon a monster strong enough to break the barrier.
• A challenger emerges! Gabby seems to think Cassidy can't be trusted, and it should be noted, she does have a purple headbow and the same bang style as Goops. Perhaps Goops can disguise herself. (Of course, this is presuming Gabby was talking about Cassidy, she didn't name names so it could be Vedika or Harley or Bud she was referring to.)
  • It turns out in this pageCassidy in her magical girl form Flash Cut was spying on Undine and Kokoro while they were training. In the later pages, the hamburger monsters have orange eyes, which is Cassidy's signature color.
    • Furthermore, Flash Cut's main power is the ability to split herself in two. Sound familiar?
  • Should be noted: this is what the Wikitionary defines a flash cut as. Make of those definitions what you will.
  • Of course, this all could be a giant Red Herring specifically to get us guessing.
    • Cassidy is definitely not Goops as of this page.

Undine's powers

The reason Undine was able to utilize the water jet cutter move, was because of the power she inherited from Tessa

One of the unknown women is the announcer.

The voice is specifically called a lady's in Chapter 1 - Page 6, so it's likely either Anemone, or a recording of the woman in white.

• The speakers the announcements come out of are shaped like anemone flowers, much like Anemone's name and parasol. It's probably Anemone.
  • The text colors don't seem to match up, though.
  • While Anemone is fighting Goops, the speakers are silent about the ongoing emergency with the barrier going down, so it's probably her. Maybe the speakers don't bring out her speech text colors.
  • I mean, this troper personally thought the text colors did match up, but maybe there's a minute difference I couldn't detect.

Goops McGee is Mitsuki

Their hair looks similar and given that her mother died with ice similar to her color scheme it is possible that something like Goops is the result of the nightmare corruption on a former magical girl who lost her power.

• Why would Mitsuki hate Undine though?

Anemone was on the receiving end of a power transfer from The Woman In White, which inadvertently rendered her immortal one way or another.

Between Anemone's power apparently being some form of omnipotence or foresight (which, as far as non-combatant powers go, sounds incredibly convenient, perhaps even overpowered) her apparent mourning over the Woman in White, the implication that she's Older Than She Looks in the Crimmus Interstitial, and the fact that we’ve only ever seen the Woman in White in dreams and therefore don’t know her actual appearance or full color scheme…

Additional possible evidence:

• The Woman in White is shown, however briefly, to have had a physical form at some point, as evidenced by the fact that Anemone still has a painting of her hanging around.
• Such a reveal would loop right back around to Chapter 2, A.K.A the catalyst for the rest of the comic's plot, and effectively introduce Anemone as a major character/a possible foil to Undine.
• Power transfers are all but outright stated to be incredibly dangerous, and it's not unreasonable to assume that in the earliest and most unpredictable forms of magical girl powers, Ascended to a Higher Plane of Existence could be a possible side effect. "Rendering receiver immortal," however, is a bit more outlandish.
• Vedika also mentions a Founder figure that is the subject of worship for many people, which ties back into the theory of the Woman in White and the Founder being one in the same.

Undine is a reincarnation of, if not the Founder herself, then some aspect of her.

That's why she got a rare second dream, and remembered the Woman in White, and why Goops is targeting her.

Heartful Punch is one of the only magical girls who's never met The Woman in White.

Unlike other magical girls who seem to do so during their dreams, since the source of H.P's powers are different from other girls means that she's "cut off" so to speak from her. Further evidenced by her closed off behaviour when the others' are talking about the dreams they've had, Heartful Punch has never had one.

Rue being unregistered will be a plot point.

There's going to be some sort of situation - probably a life or death one - and Tessa will have to either watch another friend get injured or die or turn her in to the M.G.S.I., betraying Rue's trust.

• Something else to consider: Rue seems to be getting closer to Will than Tessa is (seems to be inadvertently since Rue asked why Tessa hasn't asked him out yet), so jealousy might be another motivator.

Goops McGee isn't a magical girl at all...

...but a monster.

TL;DR: Word of God confirms that the monsters are based off of various phobias. One of Sleepless Domain's major recurring themes is dreams, so following that thread, let's say the monsters actually manifest from the fears or nightmares of the city's residents. Taking Goops' strange and nightmarish nature into account, it's very much a possibility that she was never human to begin with, and is instead a fear herself - more specifically, the fear of magical girls, thus explaining her hatred for Undine and sapience uncharacteristic of monsters.

• Alternate idea: She's basically the hatred and fear of the Woman in White, purged from her and taken corporeal form.

Sleepless Domain is a sequel to Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka

Specifically, once where the story ends badly and the town SD takes place in is the only human refuge left.

Rue's not actually a magical girl.

That's why she's not registered with the M.G.S.I. She's actually a normal civilian that's probably using the same bombs Mark had to fight monsters with. I mean, to be fair... her eyes don't really look green, and that hair just could be a stylistic choice like normal!Tessa having mauve hair in some lights.

• I have never been so glad to have gotten Jossed. Chapter 13 shows Rue's transformation sequence.

Goops was supposed to be Tessa's twin and died before she could be born.

A likely answer is that she was absorbed by Tessa in the womb (possibly before Tessa's mother even knew about the pregnancy), and didn't gain a corporeal form until Tessa's powers as Alchemical Aether awakened, which had the side effect of 'awakening' Goops's powers. (Personally, I feel that had she been born she would have been Alchemical Umbra, as one person theorized.) She resents Tessa for living the life she should have lived, and attacked Team Alchemical to hurt her, and out of jealousy at the others. She continues to target Undine only because she senses Tessa's powers in her, and thinks that if she can absorb Tessa's powers, she can become 'real'. This comic should have been a showdown between Tessa and Goops, which brings me to the next WMG.

Undine is The Unchosen One.

It should have been Tessa at the center of this. It's openly been stated that Tessa was the strongest of Team Alchemical. There's also the two comics where the Woman in White tries to visit her after she lost her powers, showing that she has some sort of interest in her. Therefore, I propose that Tessa was The Chosen One. Undine only ended up being the center of the plot because Tessa's powers transferred to her, leaving the Woman in White with no choice but to use Undine instead. (And yes, I am suggesting that Undine was supposed to die with the others.)

And now for the contrarian theory: Tessa was never supposed to be a magical girl.

This is supposing that Undine indeed was The Chosen One. The only reason Tessa, and indeed the rest of Team Alchemical, gained powers was because Undine unconsciously wished it so her friends could be with her. (Remember, canonically she was the first one to awaken.) Tessa was shown to be not too happy about Undine awakening. I suspect that while Undine was Resigned to the Call, Tessa just wants to be special. Which brings me to the next WMG.

• If the question mark chapter is any indication (and if we can believe it's true, cause this is a memory provided by Goops) Tessa was the last girl on Team Alchemical to get her powers. Food for thought.
  • The Woman In White initially didn't unlock Tessa's powers because it's Lonely at the Top. So we'll file this as plausible but unconfirmed.

Goops is the manifestation of Tessa's anger, resentment, and jealousy.

Sally was right: Tessa really does think she was better than the others. And when Tessa sat out that fateful night, her resentment and anger at being questioned as leader manifested itself...as Goops. Who proceeded to attack the other girls to 'teach them a lesson'. She continues to attack Undine because Tessa is jealous that Undine kept her powers while Tessa lost them, and now that she did so she is practically ignored by everyone except Rue.

Goops is going to offer Tessa a Deal with the Devil

Seems Tessa regrets giving up her powers and is starting to crack from how her life's turning out. Makes prime material for her to become a Dark Magical Girl, right? And Goops could give her means to get new powers if she makes killing Undine a condition of it, which Tessa might do if she thinks it would get her what she wants. And Goops has some sort of interest in Tessa, she's briefly heard at the cemetery, and according to Anemone has been lurking outside her window.

• Seen from this perspective, it's possible that everything Goops has done up to this point has been done with the goal of hurting and isolating Tessa, to get her depressed enough to accept this deal. She starts by waiting for Tessa to leave the team before killing them - targeting all Tessa friends, but not Tessa herself. This is complicated by Undine surviving, so she doubles down on her efforts to kill Undine (and Kokoro once they start helping each other), so that Tessa will have nobody left. Tessa now seems to have shut out Undine anyway, which may be why several weeks have passed (seemingly) uneventfully for Undine and Kokoro - she's no longer helping Tessa get better, so there's no longer any need to target them. Rue, however, is still trying to help Tessa, which is why she was Goops' most recent target (as of 11/25/19). All with the goal of getting a powerful MG like Tessa on her side somehow, either as a Dark Magical Girl or some sort of physical host for Goops herself, to become a much more effective method of breaking through the barrier than the monsters could ever be.
• Alternate idea: the deal is to revive Team Alchemical, with Goops in Undine's place. It'd torture her to see her teammates again, possibly as zombies/monsters, and Tessa crazed, and Goops taunting her all the while.
• Confirmed in the gist, some of the details got wrong. Goops and Tessa end up merging instead.

Counter-theory: Goops will offer Tessa a Deal with the Devil and Tessa will reject it immediately

Most versions of the theory have Goops offer her some kind of power so that she can return to being a magical girl. The problem is that Tessa does not give a damn that she lost her powers. When she talks to Undine, she seems shocked that Undine would care that she lost them. Other than that, she literally never even mentions them. She's falling apart not because she misses her powers, but because she thinks she's responsible for the deaths of three of the four people she cares about more than anything else in the world, her own life included.

Due to her depressive spiral, her friends are the only thing she still cares about. Unless Goops can convince her that joining her would bring back Sally, Sylvia, and Gwen (unconvincing) or would protect Undine (unconvincing and guaranteed to backfire on Goops), she just doesn't have anything to offer Tessa.

• Jossed.

At some point, Heartful Punch will be able to tap into her mother's abilities.

My guess, she'll be able to summon javelins (they're spears!) to pull off some sort of long range attack.

A character will be revealed to be a magical girl whose color is black

A character having colored speech text indicates to the reader that she is a magical girl, while plain black text indicates that a character is non-magical, so black text could also be a way to hide a magical girl whose color is black.

• Well, that could tie into the Dark Magical Girl Tessa theory...
  • One of the unnamed members of Team Flash seems to have black hair and text, but that's probably not what anyone was talking about.

Sylvia was a Fallen Princess.

She came off as a Rich Bitch thanks to being a money-grubbing snob, but then we learned that she had a good reason to be Only in It for the Money: she was in charge of her family's finances and earned all the money for them after something happened to put her mother out of work (possibly illness or injury). It could be that the Skylarks used to have more money than they now do, hence the way she acted and the connections she had to snag a good manager and hire a camera crew.

The Woman in White, Anemone, and the Purple One were all once members of the same Magical Girl Team

Perhaps even the original Magical Girl Team, which first defended the City whenever... whatever happened happened. The Woman in White sacrificed herself to power the barrier and/or empower more Magical Girls to carry on the fight. Anemone got stuck watching over the whole thing. The Purple One somehow got corrupted by the monsters, to the point that her former teammate doesn't even recognize her. Goops also had some kind of bad history with the team's Water user, explaining her obsession with Undine, who she either misidentifies or regards as the reincarnation of her enemy.

• Or maybe Goops was the original Water user, and her reaction to Undine is self-hatred. If she's able to manifest ice, that would explain how she knows how HP's mother died — because she's the one who killed her.
• There does appear to be a flashback in this interstial that does suggest the Woman in White and Anemone at the least were a team.

The prototypes shown in the first printed volume will be retconned into being preincarnations of Kokoro, Undine, the Golden One, and Goops.

I mean, it seems awfully coincidental that the other two people in the prototype team had yellow and purple as their color schemes...perhaps they were the FIRST magical girl team, but something happened that caused the Purple One to feel betrayed and now seeks revenge against her former teammates, even to the point of reincarnation.

Undine is being kept alive by Tessa's magic

As in constantly. When Tessa revived Undine, she didn't stop being a magic girl. All her magic is just concentrated in keeping Undine alive or at least animated. Goops McGee even commented that she isn't interested in killing Undine anymore cause "she's already dead".

There is no Team Flash, or if there is Cassidy isn't actually a member.

Seems pretty odd we haven't even seen one of them once, and Cassidy is spending all her time in school around HP. If the above theory that Cassidy is Goops is true, this might be a cover story.

• Jossed. A team is seen here waiting for Cassidy.

Cassidy is not Goops. Rather, Goops has an army of magical girl double agents. Why? Goops's powers is to make monsters based off of magical girls' powers.

Following the hamburger monster and Cassidy connection that I mentioned above. It is likely that Goops has a bunch of magical girls on her side to help her create monsters.

• Nope. Chapter 15 confirms that Cassidy is not on the Purple Girl's side, as Goops targets her when she runs off alone.

Those with grey/white color schemes have some tie to Anemone.

I just find it awfully coincidental that both Bud and Zoe have grey and white as their color scheme and Flower Motifs. Anemone has grey hair and a Flower Motif as well (notice the bow in her hair.) There's gotta be some sort of connection.

Zoe and Bud are supposed to be a thematic duo

But someone changed the records so no one catches that.

• Jossed. Bud and Harley applied through the bureau, and were paired together.
  • Not necessarily, they may have been a duo before Zoe awakened.

The fight between Undine and Cassidy will end when Vedika gets between them.

And it accidentally triggers a power of Vedika's...to share memories. Cassidy and Vedika will see through Undine's eyes exactly what happened in Chapter 2.

• Unfortunately, jossed. Vedika does use her powers to give Heartful Punch a recap of what went down, though.

Cassidy's partly motivated by the Clingy Jealous Girl trope.

It's not exactly hard to get a crush on HP after all, and when it comes to, at the least, HP's attraction to Undine, Everyone Can See It. If Cassidy is interested in HP romantically, then she'd see Undine as a threat.

• Well Bud thinks that's what's going on.
• Jossed by Word of Cube. Cube despises the Psycho Lesbian trope and has made it very clear that Cassidy does not have a crush on HP.

Goops will also make that Deal with the Devil to Cassidy.

Unless something happens to change Cassidy's mind about Undine, she'll probably leave the club when the rest of the girls take Undine's side. (It's also possible they'll kick her out of the club.) A perfect target for Goops to sway her over to get her revenge (And if the above WMG is true, HP's love.) Hell, why CAN'T Goops make the Psycho Rangers?

• Unfortunately, nope. She just kills Cassidy instead of making her any kind of offer.
• Though she says here that "It's too bad you're one of hers. We might have gotten along."

Cassidy's accusation are going to trigger a moment of Power Incontinence in Undine

Friends arguing seems to be a trigger for Undine (and considering the circumstances that led to Team Alchemical's deaths, who can blame her?), so she'll snap and lose control of her powers while yelling for everyone to stop fighting. It's going to take a Cooldown Hug from HP to calm her again. Unfortunately, Cassidy will just think she's been proven right.

• Jossed. Undine's not in the best state emotionally, but she does remain in control of her powers.

Much like Undine, Tessa has also inherited all or part of her powers from someone else.

Magical girls have the same color for their eyes and their hair. The only exceptions so far are HP, whose eyes are solid blue due to her mother's powers, and Undine, who got pink pupils after Tessa saved her from dying. And back when she was a magical girl, Tessa's eyes also weren't a solid color, instead being pink with golden pupils - so she was probably at the receiving end of a power transfer as well. She probably blames herself for it as well, if we go by her words "Any one of you deserves to live more than I do" back in chapter 2.

• Alternately, her mother was a magical girl who sacrificed her powers the same way Mitsuki did. HP mentions that the CDD doesn't like talking about magical girls getting pregnant, so it's not implausible that they might have covered this up to the point where it isn't common knowledge. And the Woman in White says here that Tessa had extremely strong magical potential, and HP theorizes that some of her own unusual strength comes from having inherited power from her mother.

Goops will go after Cassidy next.

Goops tends go after those with connections to what happened on that night, and Cassidy's trying to find out. Also on the title page for chapter 15, Cassidy is in the dark purple tea.

• Confirmed

The line 'can you split other girls in two' is Foreshadowing.

Cassidy's gonna go murderous and try to kill Undine that way.

• Jossed. Kinda difficult for that to happen, now that Cassidy is dead.

There is nothing 'special' about Undine that makes Goops target her, it's just Goops' own pettiness

Goops is just trying to kill as many magical girls as she can. The reason Goops is taunting Undine and Tessa is simple: she survived Goops' attempt to kill her, and now Goops wants to finish the job. Now that Rue and Zoe have survived a similar attempt, Goops may react the same way- or, given the fallout of this failure, Goops may have recognized that her petty 'revenge' is getting her nowhere and switch tactics.

Zoe's Magical Girl name

I'm thinking Silver Sniper, myself. She'd probably have 'Silver' in there somewhere to honor her sister, and Sniper is because of her abilities with the slingshot.

• I'd say Silver Shoot: references her sister, has a pun related to her powers (shooting and "shoot" as in plant shoot) and is cool and actiony, incongruously with Zoe's overwhelming self-doubt. Whoever the names (and powers, most probably) come from seems inclined towards Meaningful Names, giving Making a Splash to a girl named "Undine" and so on, which suggests intelligence and sense of humor (dark, perhaps, but still). The sort of person who makes puns and ironic jokes.

Cassidy's death will only serve to instill more suspicion towards Undine from other magical girls.

Without context, a magical girl disappearing not even a week after accusing a relatively new arrival to the Power Training Club of intentionally setting her other teammates up to die is pretty suspicious. It probably won't make everyone turn on Undine right away, but it's bound to plant a few seeds of doubt.

Goops McGee is a forgotten fallen member of Team Alchemy.

All magical girls are Reality Warpers and Tessa was (briefly) a Physical God

In settings with magic systems that use stamina and willpower as energy sources, characters who see their friends in danger can do things nobody thought were possible. In Sleepless Domain, this ability is not merely a dramatic device. Caring for someone enough lets magical girls break the laws of magic outright.

As described by HP, having her mother's power just means she got a general boost in power level. Undine having Tessa's power worked the same way, at first. But when she saw HP nearly get eaten in Chapter 8, she rewrote the rules of power inheritance just enough that she would inherit specific abilities as well.

That doesn't even compare to what Tessa did, though. According to what we know about the magic system, Tessa shouldn't have been able to heal Undine because she wasn't given a healing power. But Tessa cares for her friends with the force of a thousand suns, so when she saw Undine dying and the rest of her friends dead, she ascended to physical godhood and stayed there until her powers burnt out. Undine merely budged the rules of an ability she already had; Tessa created and gave herself a healing ability from scratch using force of will alone. A very powerful healing ability, too: based on Rue's comments after taking a healing potion, healing some burns and scrapes is about as intensive as a full night of fighting. Tessa, on the other hand, fully healed Undine's near-fatal injury within seconds.

Lettie is also the result of a Magical Girl Teen Pregnancy.

Note that despite her hair and speech bubbles being green, she has purple eyes.

Had Sylvia lived long enough to age out, she'd probably have become an agent for magical girls herself.

Something like that probably pays well, and she'd probably still want to try to earn money for the family, especially if her sister never becomes a magical girl herself.

Bud is blind.

Bud has pretty unusual eyes, even for magical girls. Plus there's always the Eyes Always Shut thing. Perhaps it's because she doesn't usually have use of her eyes? Her powers probably gave her some way of fighting with that, and if anything it would explain how she got so good at gossip: she's great at hearing things. I hope I'm wrong about this one though, cause if she's gotten powers that aid her, it'll be heartbreaking when she loses them.

The Outer Barrier as we see it in Chapter 17 is acting abnormally.

Either Goops' presence is throwing it out of wack or it's decaying naturally; either way, the memory static isn't supposed to cover the entire wall.

Other towns and cities exist, but only the setting has Magical Girls

Other societies survive using a variety of methods, some magical, some technological, many of which are more morally ambiguous than the magical girl system and may include more traditional sorcery and Human Sacrifice.

Alternately, the rest of the world is just fine, it's only Magical Girl City that's isolated as some form of punishment.

The ??? interlude implies that everything involving the monsters was somehow the Woman in White's fault in the first place. Perhaps she dabbled in something she shouldn't have, and as punishment the city is cut off from the rest of the world. Maybe the monsters even were sent from the other cities to try to destroy it once and for all.

Team WaterPunch will be scapegoated and accused of sabotaging the inner barrier.

Purely because they will be closest to Anemone and Anemone will be conveniently unconscious at that point.

Alternately, the failure of the Inner Barrier will be covered up.

Can you imagine the chaos that would ensue if the public found out the only thing protecting them from monsters is one magical girl?

Sleepless Domain took a page from Madoka, and The Monsters have something to do with Magical Girls who've died, and the way they died. Additionally, monsters do not permanently die, but respawn eventually.

In Chapter 15, Cassidy 'Flash Cut' dies in an unusual way: while split, both halves were killed simultaneously, and she simply faded from existence. Four chapters later [Ch. 19, pg. 6-13] we see HP fight a monster that looks exactly like Cassidy's haircut, with the power to make someone vanish and then fade from reality.

Those are the objective facts about its form. Interpretationally, the large head could represent Cassidy's ego; its hidden eyes could represent either shame, or her loss of identity once HP denounced her. The permanent grimace could represent her emotional state when she died. The horn could represent the tip of a single scissor blade.

Additionally, if this is true, that would make every monster unique. But we've seen the 'same kind' of monsters spawn on different nights, so they must respawn. Since they don't permanently die and there's no way to 'cure' them, this could be the reason that the monster problem has been slowly but steadily growing worse.

Different lengths of respawn times could also be responsible for the nights when monsters spawn in massive amounts; their respawns all just happened to align.

A future chapter will feature one or more magical girls being on the wrong side of the Outer Barrier when it goes back up, and having to survive until it goes back down the next night.

Which will probably end up a Wham Episode centered around the truth about the outside world.

Goops is a part of the Woman In White that she expelled from herself when she ascended to a higher plane of existence.

Hence why she knows everything that's going on: her memories are the Woman in White's.