Author's Notes for "Alive Thorugh the Dawn" It's been quite a while since I first had the thought, "I wonder if I can write a decent sex scene?" and decided to give it a try. The scene was written and put away, and didn't get pulled back out until ch. 106-107 of Furuba came out almost a year later; I didn't have much interest in releasing a plotless piece with no context, and those chapters gave me the framework I'd been needing to make a real story. Building the 'frame' involved rewriting almost all of the original material, and the final product is a fairly lengthy story. It's about a lot of things--recovery from trauma, rebuilding a shattered relationship, coming to terms with the ways people change in spite of themselves or because of things they do deliberately. It's 'about' love, and the limits of what love is capable of. It's not about sex. But due to its origins, the second half of the story does contain quite a lot of sexual material, and would-be readers should be aware of it. If you're someone who's concerned about sexual content, this may not be for you. One of the main reasons I'm writing this note is that I've received emails from readers who were concerned about (much smaller quantities of) sexual suggestiveness in my previous writing (and in some cases, in the original manga); also, the fact is that there isn't an obvious 'target audience' for this story. If you're looking for an uncomplicated lemon fic, this may not be for you, either. But before you decide, you should know what you're deciding on. (I'm not good at choosing ratings for my work, but the opinion of my beta-readers is that this qualifies as R-rated, rather than X-rated/NC-17.) The aesthetic I was working from is "explicit but not graphic". There's no attempt at being vague about what's going on in those scenes, but--I hope, if I've done my job right--there's also nothing gratuitous, nothing that breaks the emotional threads of the story. Sex scenes can certainly be straightforward, but they're also very useful for getting into characters' heads; the way people interact sexually can be very revealing about conflicting emotional needs, the way they deal with vulnerability, trust issues, overcompensation . . . you name it, it's likely to be magnified in that kind of situation. So that's where I was coming from when I was writing, and I hope that's what came through. If you think that might work for you, please give it a shot (and feedback of any kind is highly valued and adored, naturally). Final note: I don't know who you are, or how old you are, or any of those things. You *do* know your age, and the laws of your area. Please behave accordingly, or at least a) don't complain about the content in terms of age-appropriateness, and b) don't tell me you're underage if you read it. It's not my job to police you. I'm a writer. You decide if you're a reader. Ysabet