how do you think bert plays into the frerard timeline? i was never a fan of the used but i think there’s no denying that gerard/bert happened to some extent. did gee have something sexual with both of them simultaneously? did bert replace frank in a sense and then gee went back to him after the gerbert fallout? i never hear people talk about this outside of the fanfic trope where bert’s the annoying asshole that gets in the way and frank is gerard’s savior from his addiction. would love to hear a more grounded theory on this
Personally, I don't really gaf about The Used...but I do agree that Bert as an individual, as well as Bert's relationship with Gerard, are consistently pretty undermined on here. Putting aside whatever bullshit Bert's been spouting in interviews as a popularity grab recently, it's interesting that Gerard seemed to latch onto him of all people to view as an equal, if not maybe someone he looked up to in a way? Not disparaging Bert's talents, Gerard just has never come off as insecure as a frontman. He knew he could sing from an early age, he has never seemed to doubt that. His fixation on Bert just seems to compound what I've previously written about Gerard, which is that Gerard's ego needs some form of social reinforcement in order to actualize itself. Bert was the epitome of what Gerard was trying to lean into at the time, the "crazed frontman." Gerard likes to feel like he's in a gang, and if his own band wasn't going to back certain behaviors of his that he felt were necessary for the act, finding a mirror/twin in another singer would do the job just the same. I have no doubt that Gerard would have fetishized Bert's background as well. Gerard likes it when things are ugly, dirty, and complicated. He probably felt that he and Bert shared some perspective on the underbelly of life that Gerard couldn't share with his band.
I don't think Gerard, mentally, has the capacity to understand overlaps in relationships. He is so compartmentalized with how he views work, periods of life, and his relationships with people. He views events less as a linear timeline and more so as a red string map of what was serving/solving the given issue of the time. Frank lives in one box, Bert lives in another. There are parts of Gerard's life that he would've undoubtedly felt could not be understood by Frank, and that's where Bert would come in. It's funny, because F and B are the same age, but Gerard would've been keeping marks on based on life experience, and he will always view Frank as some scrappy punk kid who exists to personify the work, whilst Bert had a real, unknown/unpredictable edge that Gerard would've seen himself in and wanted to push further to see where it ends.
There are many, many things to be said about addict relationships, and one day I'd like to go into that further, but for now I'll just point out that I do believe that G's relationship with Bert was much more heavily rooted in competition than just some no-strings-attached fuckbuddy situation. Gerard saw himself in Bert and wanted to supernova him in every way. He was fine with camaraderie until he realized how truly successful Mychem had the potential of being. After that, he wanted to supercede The Used, he wanted to parasite-draw whatever magnetism/powers he could from Bert, he wanted to be the more prolific addict. He would observe everything Bert was doing and double the action to get twice the reaction. This was probably more sexually stimulating than anything Frank was doing for Gerard at the time, and probably totally involuntary on Bert's end. Bert was most likely genuinely just looking for a friend/drinking buddy.
To answer your question, I do believe Bert/Gerard and Frank/Gerard were happening at the same time, but there was no "going back to" one or the other, or feelings of cheating, at least on Gerard's end. Frank probably should've treated the whole thing as a cautionary tale of what Gerard is capable of putting people through, but c'est la vie. Nobody in this situation is a victim; everybody just made bad choices.
