question about yeast, sweetness and possibility of cherry

I've been reading posts on here for hours, trying to come up with a good method and recipe for some cider. Ultimately, I would love to create a sweet and slightly tart sparkling cherry apple cider. It looks like there may be a few obstacles in the way:
**Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm just going with information I've gathered from various posts on here**
-If I use a standard yeast, it will eat all of the sugar causing a dry cider without much fruit taste left.

-If I let the yeast go to completion, and then back-sweeten with non-fermentable sugar, can I still bottle carbonate it? If the yeast is already to completion(dead?), how will it eat the priming sugar to cause carbonation?

-If I stop the fermentation early with metabisulfite or cold crashing to leave some of the fruit sugar and flavor behind, I wont be able to bottle carbonate it since the yeast will be dead.

-If I bottle the cider before the yeast has reached completion, it's highly likely to cause bottle bombs.

-It sounds like people are mostly unsuccessful with retaining any cherry flavor when making cherry ciders. Has anyone had success with any proportion of cherry juice, concentrate, or actual fruit?

-Is there a strain of yeast that finishes at a lower alcohol content to leave some sugar behind? If so, would it be possible to bottle carbonate it?

I'm mainly confused with what happens once a yeast has gone to completion(stops bubbling). If it gets to its maximum alcohol content, wouldn't it get killed off? If it does indeed get killed off, how would it be expected to eat the priming sugar and cause carbonation in bottles? Could you then add a bit more yeast to eat the priming sugar?

If you use nonfermentable sugars, you can indeed prime it and bottle carbonate. Complete fermentation does not necessarily mean that you have reached the yeast's alcohol tolerance. Ferment it dry, add nonfermentable sugar to taste and then add 1oz of priming sugar per gallon and bottle. This will give you a sweet sparkling cider.

If you stabilize, you can not carbonate naturally, only through kegging.

If you bottle before it is complete, there is no true way to know how much of the remaining sugars the yeast will eat. This means you have no control over how much co2 is produced and therefore there is a risk of bottle bombs.

Retaining fruit flavors is often based on sweetness. Dry cider's and apple wines often taste like dry white wines, because the sweetness is what brings out the apple flavor.

I can see why so many people like kegging, it sounds like it makes things much less complicated!
I think understanding all of the science details will make it a much easier process. If I understand correctly, when the airlock stops bubbling and the SG reading stays the same, the yeast aren't all dead, just mostly dead and really slow? If I were to leave my cider in the carboy for an extended amount of time then would the yeast eventually all die off? It sounds like with the typical bottling process, the cider gets bottled when most all of the yeast have died off and just a few remain. Wouldn't the alcohol content go up by a bit in the bottle from the priming sugars? I'm guessing the amount is negligible?
I think I'm still a little curious about using a lower alcohol producing yeast strain. If the yeast is essentially done fermenting at say 8% alcohol, and sugar remains, why would you need to add any priming sugar to carb? If the yeast is done at its 8% limit, how can it keep eating sugar to cause carbonation?
If the yeast isn't completely being killed off by alcohol content and keeps fermenting sugar as you add it in, couldn't you 'trick' the yeast into producing more alcohol than it should by adding more sugar in slowly?
I may be over thinking everything, but I really like to understand all of the details. I was that annoying kid in class that kept asking 'why?'

OK, bunch more questions haha
The end of fermentation does not coincide with the yeast dying. One case in which the yeast can die, is if they are unable to survive in a highly alcoholic (Or acidic or etc) environment. However, when the airlock stops bubbling, which just so you know isn't proof that the yeasts are done eating up the sugars, it just means that the yeasts have either eaten up all of the sugar they can get access too, or eaten all of the sugar that their attenuation allows.

Generally when the yeast stop eating sugars, they don't just die off, they go dormant, since there isn't much or any food left for them. That is why, say you make a brew and fermentation completes int 6 weeks, you could age that for 6 months and then still add priming sugar and the yeast will wake back up to carbonate your brew.

Yes the alcohol content does raise in a natural or bottle carbonating process, but as you guessed it is basically negligible.

Some yeasts do leave residual sugars, but are still able to carbonate. Try out some ale yeasts, they are designed for beers and generally have lower attenuation and alcohol tolerances. You could also experiment with adding nonfermentable, or not completely fermentable sugars to your brew. One example would be malt, like in beers, it leaves a sweetness to the beer while leaving the yeasts intact to wake up and eat the much easier to process priming sugar.

If yeasts are treated well, with nutrients and sometimes the necessity for stepped sugar additions, yes they can often exceed their "accepted" alcohol tolerances by 1-3%

There are others that can better answer your questions, if I am not doing a good job, try pm'ing YooperBrew to see if she could answer your questions more fully in this thread. Also, I am that annoying kid to, so keep asking questions, you're enjoy the hobby more and your brew will be better for it.

Thanks so much for taking time out to reply to all of my questions. It is very helpful and appreciated! I hope I'll be as knowledgeable as people on here someday so I can be helpful to someone. I just got back from my home brew store with some white labs sweet mead yeast. It seems like that should leave a bit more sweetness behind. I think I'll wait until secondary fermentation to add in my cherries or cherry concentrate(haven't decided which yet), since the yeast will have gotten a good meal on the apple sugars, and I think they'll leave more of the cherry sugar behind that way. Now that I think I understand yeast better, it seems much easier to design my cider. Thanks again!

DO you have a recipe for that cherry port your going to start

I am thinking through my cherry port, won't be starting it for at least 2 or 3 weeks. Getting ideas together thanks to several members on here that have given me a lot of advice. When I have it going, and assuming it is going well, I will put a recipe up on here. I don't want to share a recipe until I know it is worth repeating.

I cant wait to see it thanks tusch