[Used Can]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

And the reason why Battler is absent is because he didn't feel like it. He's not gonna attend some witch funeral, ihi.

That's a possibility, but it's not a fact.
Honestly, my sole point here is that there are a variety of reasons Battler could have been absent in EP7. And depending on some of those reasons, we may be getting some hints.
Basically, I'm saying that whilst Battler showed up in Rokkenjima in all the normal games, he didn't show up in EP7's, and that one happens to be the one in which Yasu doesn't exist. So, there could be something suspicious there.
Now, if you want to think it's just a coincidence and that Battler just happened to miss that conference for reasons completely unrelated the mystery, that's cool.
All I wanted to point out is that there may be a hint there.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Does Featherine have authority over BATTLER, or does she only claim to? Her human identity claimed to write EP6, and we know this isn't true.

Hard to say. One thing we can be sure of, though, is that Ikuko quite likely knows as much as Tōya. Moreover, we've seen Featherine been able to watch BATTLER's actions from one Meta-level above.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Does Featherine have authority to allow games, or does Bern have the authority to write one in the same manner anyone can write a fanfiction?

BATTLER has no awareness for the same reason the Author doesn't know about your shitty fanfic.

Anyone can write fanfictions, indeed, but only specific people can be Game Masters - namely, people who have solved the mystery. The issue here is, though, we know that although Bern knew some things about it, she quite likely hadn't reached the main truth. So, she couldn't simply just be a Game Master like that. However, Featherine showed up in EP6 and allowed her to host a game.

Also, regarding the topic of fanfictions and authors have nothing to do with them, doesn't that defeat your argument about Bern being wary about BATTLER screwing up her story? I mean, just like an author can do nothing about how someone writes a fanfic, by what you've said, BATTLER should be unable to do anything about how Bern wrote her story. So, no possession of pieces and whatnot.

Also, I don't really think BATTLER minds heartless stories. He was more than okay with Bern's story in EP8. He also rolled around with the story with that psycho Battler in the latest TIP.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Except for EP4, where Battler talks to her twice.

Precisely my point. We know the Beatrice Battler met in EP4 - and quite likely the one Rosa and Kyrie met in EP2 was Yasu. There's no real Beatrice - real as in terms of looks, part of her personality and the whole deal about being the family alchemist and even less a witch. In the end, what we got was someone personifying Beatrice.

So, if Erika is a non-person, just as with Beatrice, someone should be personifying her, instead of her being an actual person with her own body.

Originally Posted by Kealym

But ... but...

# Furudo Erika had no influence on any of Beato's games before now.
# She does not exist in the worlds before this one, nor does she influence them.
# Furudo Erika only increases it by one person.
# Besides her, the number of people on this island is exactly the same as it was in the previous games.

So ... yeah.

Precisely. Notice that by increasing the numbers of people in the island by one, these reds confirm Erika playing the role of a human in EP5 (and, quite likely, in EP6). Moreover, it also confirms there was no Furudo Erika in any of the previous games, nor did she have any influence, which, I think shows she couldn't have showed up as a non-person either (i.e. a la mini-skirt Beato).

So, I think this way it can be explained why Shannon and Kanon can show up as people and add to the head-count (or well, at least one of them, since there's the chance one of those may be Yasu's servant name, and thus a real person). Well, this is basically what Renall pointed out before, but I think the distinction between human and non-person is important, since this would explain why Shannon and Kanon add to the count, and Beatrice doesn't.