Inspirations for Mixolys

Better late than never. Homework Prompt for Summer Camp Prep Week 3 asks for an inspiration board. Well, why not music for the music world?
Ar Tonelico and Surge Concerto
Without Ar Tonelico, Mixolys would not exist. Ar Tonelico was the original world of song magic and feelings that I encountered. While many would dismiss the game series for their occasional fanservice content, the lore goes way deeper than that. There are mechanics and made up sciences for everything. It even has its own language for its song magic, Hymmnos, which inspired Melodicode and its related languages. The notion of feelings becoming power has stuck with me ever since I first encountered the series, and my desire to create beautiful, expressive lyrics lives in Mixolys.

Surge Concerto is Ar Tonelico's spiritual successor, using different languages and mechanics for its worlds but still maintaining a powerful lore and story. I didn't take quite as much from Surge Concerto as I did from Ar Tonelico, but you can thank this series for earlier iterations of my song magic languages and the Pactones (though the Pactones are also Pokemon-inspired to a degree, haha).

Sidebar: Cosmocrystal
While I'm still on the topic of song magic, I ought to address my friends' project inspired by Ar Tonelico as well, since this project (and the people who made it) are also extremely inspiring to me. The doujin circle A Reyvateil's Melody, or ARM, has created three Cosmocrystal albums, all three with powerful music created out of love for the series's lore. The current ones are Cosmocrystal II, Side Red and Side Blue. When I see what these folks have done to make a world out of song, I can't help but make twinkle-twinkle eyes at them. They rock!
Muscadier Mystique, from Side Blue.
Bioaeras Amenostasis, from Side Red. Coincidentally, the project lead sang this song. Give him a hand!
A side song featuring Quivora and Shia, two characters from the albums.
A side song featuring the character Asher from Side Blue. (Apparently this one isn't very popular but I love it and they can FIGHT ME on it.)
Not a Cosmocrystal song, but an Ar Tonelico song covered by one of ARM's members.
Hypnosis Mic
And now for something completely different. Hypnosis Mic is a Japanese music project that brought 12 voice actors together, threw together a world where all conflicts are solved by literal rap battles, and ran with the concept. The titular Hypnosis Mics work by affecting people's nervous systems, and I thought to myself... "Okay, so you have to rap to make music, and that music has a mechanism for targeting things and people. This is song magic!" The (upcoming as of this writing) CosMic/Amenamp arc and the entire Dorrea region of Mixolys were inspired by Hypnosis Mic, and I'm quite curious to see what effect putting song magic in the hands of people who can't normally use it will have on the world.

Promare's Soundtrack
And now for something that doesn't even have anything to do with song magic. Promare is an anime movie that came out in Japan recently. I admit to having no idea what it's about aside from there being fire disasters and our protag being a fire fighter. However, its soundtrack, composed by the esteemed Hiroyuki Sawano, is gorgeous. I imagine certain song magics in Mixolys sounding a lot like what's on this soundtrack. Heck, I was devising an arc inspired by Ashes (second song down). Listen and be amazed.

In conclusion...
Music makes me passionate. Passion makes me create. Therefore, music is instrumental to my creation pipeline. I feel that Mixolys's motifs of emotion, expression, and connection are ones that resound within me, and I see good things in the future of this world with inspirations like these.