> Let's pop into Makai and take a look around!  Anything or anyone familiar nearby?

I do remember you've mentioned that at least with demo tracks SSaFE were supposed to be an exercise for Burnyuho trying different things like stage 2 theme being a mix of Konga and Touhou-style, do you perhaps know or have read anywhere about post stage 3 OST inspirations?

- Like you've mentioned some time ago the score in first Lap references Opium War, I'm still trying to figure out the rest of the numbers, but I'm starting to think they're related to Cannabis because Hanezu explodes into leaves of such.

Stage 4 - The Bustle of Confectburg ~ Nutcracker (Kingdom of Sweets - City streets)
"A welcoming fanfare echoes wide, with the candied conductor standing out in front. Is their marching song reality, or fantasy?"

Boss: The Wicked Nutcracker, Pirlie (Pirlipat Drosselmeyer). The titular "ugly" Nutcracker of Tchaikovsky's ballet, now a human-hating doll youkai who's working alongside Moe. Upon meeting the Stage 6 boss, the S6 boss provided the doll duo with a means of bringing destruction to humans without physically harming them: the addictive scent of her hallucinogenic flowers.

Stage 5 - The Puppet Queen ~ Claramary (Kingdom of Sweets - Queen's castle)
"The weakest, unluckiest humans are the first ones to be devoured. The world's always spun that way."

Boss: The Puppet Queen, Mariko Kurayoshi Claramary. A young, downtrodden Human Villager who ran afoul of the youkai trio upon running away from home, and who they promptly set up as their figurehead "queen". She's fully aware that the kingdom is fake and that the youkai are mocking her, but she prefers it to her old life and refuses to budge... so Marisa heads out to beat up the "royal advisor".

Stage 6 - Who Determined That Flower to be Evil? ~ Sweet Smells and Foolish Evils. (Crimson Flower Garden)
"WHO'S THE REAL FOOL?"

Boss: Red and Sweet Flower of Evil, Keshika Koukaen. An opium flower youkai (though the word "opium" is never mentioned out loud) who delights in bewitching both humans and youkai alike. 100% malicious, 100% remorseless, and (nearly?) 100% unfitting for the Gensokyo that we're used to.
(She also has no backstory relating to the Opium War whatsoever. :V But it's certainly fitting for an opium youkai to represent the grim underside of Team "Shanghai" Alice's world, right?)

Marisa handily defeats her and banishes the hallucinatory incident... but the ending and Staff Roll leave an awful aftertaste. Mariko goes back to her miserable village life with nothing to show for it but withdrawal symptoms, spending all her time trying to locate Keshika, Moe and Pirlie again in vain. The end.

--> ...

--> "Like hell we'd let a story like this be 'fantasy'!"

Extra Stage - The Second "One-Person Species" ~ Dream Definition (Gensokyo skies, southwestern region)
Midboss: Ex-Soldiers of the Kingdom of Sweets, Moe Suzuki & Pirlipat Drosselmeyer

The music snaps back to regular Touhou style!

Boss: Definition of All Things in Nature, Hanezu Kinarido. One of Gensokyo's youkai sages, and a "one-person species" youkai like Yukari (hence her given name meaning "vermillion flower", and her surname deriving from the late Japanologist Donald Keene / Kiinu Donarudo). Her job is to manage Gensokyo's metaphysical definitions... but she slept on the job long enough for someone as nasty as Keshika to come out of the woodwork.

She actually debuted in Unrecognized Error in Fantasy, a mini-album that Burnyuho released some time after Uncreatable Idea. The album featured a handful of OCs with subtly un-Gensokyo-like traits, which I suppose is now retroactive foreshadowing.
Now that she's gotten a wake-up call, Hanezu promptly revised the youkai trio's definitions. Moe and Pirlipat have renounced their ties to Keshika and resolved to scare humans in the normal Gensokyo way, and Keshika has likewise turned over a new leaf offscreen as "a youkai that's useful to Gensokyo".

Hanezu's penultimate spell is "The Definition of a Youkai in Gensokyo": an impassable wall of bullets with a single, narrow path punched through it. The purpose of a youkai is to be a threat that humans can overcome-- and in a beautiful, elegant fashion, at that. The Outside World's brand of evil has no place here.
Marisa asks Hanezu to relieve Mariko's symptoms while she's at it, which she agrees to do. (If not out of the goodness of her heart, then at least because "a human villager actively seeking out youkai rather than fearing them" goes against Gensokyo's policies...? :V)

Then there's another author message saying “this story is 100% fictional, does not condone criminality or malice IRL… and takes place in a fake Gensokyo dreamed up by an outside-world human, so don’t worry.” ;w; LOL thank u burnyuho

BGM listing
8. Coronet March ~ Avec creme de ganache
9. Langue-de-chat Quartet for the Nutcracker Doll
10. Dragées Dance on a Candy-Crafted Throne
11. Claramary, the Queen of Sweets
12. Fantasy Half-Life
13. Fantasy Withdrawal Syndrome ~ Sweet Smells and Foolish Evils.
14. Cold Meleagris
15. Bad Flowers Drive Out the Good
16. Apparitions’ Restoration ~ How done it!
17. Dream Definition

*track 8: the subtitle is in regular Japanese, but given the French in track 9 and 10 I figured it was appropriate lol
*track 16: Mouryou Fukko in Japanese, mirroring PCB's Youyou Bakko. I tried to make it sound like what the wiki currently has for Youyou Bakko, though it feels like the translation consensus for that one changes every couple of years. :V

> Nod.
> "That sounds like a worthwhile visit to me."

When it comes to mainline Touhou games there's not really many I dislike, but for some reason I really can't get myself to enjoy Ten Desires. It's not a bad Touhou game but something about it just makes it hard to enjoy for me.