The Duality of Liv (Patreon)

What would a mother not do for her childWhat lengths would a mother not goThere’s a bond that exists between mother and childAh, but then againHow would you know?

Olivia Fischer has been a lifelong businesswoman, but when Perry is a young teenager, she gains some limited success as a singer. Liv has a beautiful singing voice and has dreamed of fame since childhood, so she becomes very volatile during this period. Her path to Broadway is still in its delicate fledgling days, and she not about to let anything jeopardize it, least of all her impudent, irritating, perpetually needy child. This is the part of Perry’s life when he learned his mother was so much more terrifying than he could have ever imagined. A fun fact about Liv is that she never uses pet names (sweetheart, darling, dear), unless she means you great suffering.

I imagine Liv’s singing voice sounds a lot like Christine Ebersole (White Diamond from Steven Universe). Following this scene she goes on stage and announces she’d like to dedicate her song to her precious daughter, who’s sitting in the audience nervously smiling under the spotlight. She then gives a performance of After All so tender and beautiful that Perry is left awestruck, blinking back tears. There are two sides to Liv- artistry and contempt- and Perry discovers he’d much rather stay on one side than the other.

EDIT: added another drawing. Here Liv is performing Hard To Say Goodbye. No matter how his feelings toward his mother change, Perry always gets emotional when he hears his mother sing, even as an adult.