[quote=Lauren]Ok so I know it’s a little long but every detail (in my opinion) is necessary and falling in love with LP was a slower process for me. It’s also longer because no one that I know likes LP (well besides my dad but he wouldn’t understand why I love them so much) and I figured that if anyone would understand it would be the LPU members. Also if anyone actually reads this whole thing just know that they forever have my respect.
My best friend died four years ago of brain cancer and I acted like it didn’t effect me at all, but it did. About that time I also began to realize how different I was from everybody else. I was born with no left ear, so I’m completely deaf on my left side and have limited hearing on my right. It had never really sunk in that everyone else could hear more than I could until my friend had died so it really just made me more depressed. About a year and a half later towards the end of my sixth grade year I came really close to ending everything but I heard a song by Taylor Swift called “Tied Together With a Smile” (I know I’m talking about Taylor Swift but it will all come back to LP, trust me) and something about it told me to hold on. So I did. A few months later I heard another song and it also convinced me to keep holding on for a little while longer (that little while turned into a year). Then in August of 2010 I saw the video for “The Catalyst” on VH1 Top 20 Countdown. At first I really didn’t like it, the song that is, but I loved the video. Long story short the song eventually grew on me but people in my life had pegged LP as a heavy metal screamo band so I really didn’t want to get into them, plus I wasn’t a big fan of rap. Then in October came the video for “Waiting for the End.” I loved that song from the very beginning and for some reason I didn’t consider Mike’s rapping rap, probably because I actually liked it. But I still didn’t dig any deeper into LP. Then about a year ago I noticed that a band that I got into shortly after Taylor Swift began changing and it wasn’t the good type of change. The last semester of eighth grade was really hard on me. I remember coming home and crying a lot and no music that I was currently into was doing any good for me like it did before. By the time eighth grade graduation came around I had two people that were my friends, but they didn’t understand what it felt like to have someone one day and then have them ripped away from you the next. They also didn’t get how stupid you could feel because you had to ask someone to repeat what they just said three or four times just to somewhat understand what they were trying to say. I remember sitting up on that stage, looking around at the forty some faces that I couldn’t stand, and feeling so alone. One of the things that I did when I was younger was horseback riding. I started at about age three but then quit when I was eight because I wanted a horse and my parents wouldn’t get me one (I promise this will tie into LP). So about a week before graduation I decided to pick it back up again because I thought that it would get my mind off of the negative, which it did. So shortly after graduation the music video for “Iridescent” came on MTV. I remember feeling shocked that a “screamo” band could come out with something thing like that. As soon as it was done I went up to my room and watched it on YouTube. By the time Chester was done singing the chorus for the first time, I was in tears, and by the time the song was done I was crying so hard because I realized that the only way I could get past everything was by letting it go. After watching the video a few times I began to realize that maybe they weren’t just a screamo band. A few days later it was time for my second riding lesson. This time I was riding a pretty big horse named Adagio. I remember looking into his eyes while grooming him and seeing that something about him was missing. He just had this blank, lost, almost depressed look in his eyes. I felt like I was looking at a horse version of me. Anyway fast forward a bit, all during that hour of riding Adagio I couldn’t stop thinking of “Iridescent” and how I felt like it described him also. When I got home later that day I was on a mission to listen to LP. I went on iTunes and saw that those three songs were all off of ATS, so I decided to start there. The ones that I remember listening to the most were “Robot Boy” and “The Messenger” and those two convinced me buy ATS. I remember finding the CD at Target a few days later and my mom looking at me like I was insane for wanting to buy something by LP. I remember listening to it for the first time at two in the morning on June 6 and crying through pretty much the whole thing. After I listened to ATS I looked up other songs on YouTube. I don’t think that I’ve ever cried so much in my life because it’s like they were singing and rapping about the things that were going on in my head. But what I realized most was that I wasn’t the only one who was feeling the way I was. For the first time in three years I didn’t feel alone. I kept getting more and more into LP and my mom and dad didn’t understand it at all. My mom wasn’t very open minded about them but my dad eventually was. One day he asked if we could listen to ATS in the car on the way to school. So we did and he really liked it, which really surprised me. I kept up horseback riding and I kept digging myself even deeper into LP. Towards the end of September my parents bought me Adagio (I promise this is LP related) and I discovered something about him. He came to my trainer’s barn as a rescue, almost 500 pounds underweight, and nobody liked to ride him because he was a retired racehorse and liked to go faster than usual. I remember looking at him a little while after we had gotten him and not seeing this lost depressed look in his eye like I had four months earlier, but instead a small spark that was growing and wouldn’t stop. Again, I couldn’t help thinking of how in a way he was me in horse form. Then I started thinking of how he needed a show name (Adagio is his barn name and horses need something more unique when they are shown). LP song titles instantly started popping into my mind and eventually I narrowed it down to two, When They Come for Me and Iridescent. But my problem was that WTCFM described him really well because of certain lyrics but Iridescent described us together. Finally I just listened to both hoping that I could just pick. When I listened to WTCFM that time I didn’t feel anything, but before Mike even started singing the first verse of Iridescent I was crying because I knew that that was the only name that would ever work. But since discovering LP, I’ve not only learned so much about myself but I’ve gained a deeper appreciation for music and that just because a band appears to be “heavy metal screamo” it doesn’t mean that they are :)[/quote]
This is an amazing story. It really moved me. 
I’m glad you’ve found something within LP and chose to become a part of the LPU family. I don’t even know you, but I can tell you that you’re loved in the Linkin Park community and to always keep your head up. [heart][heart][heart]
so i just thougt “wow " and i saw chester in what ive done and i was abt 10 years old an di thought " he moves sooo cool :O” and then i wanted to find out more abt this cool guys with their cool music:P so i watched videos and they were funny , serious, nice, etc… at the same time 
today i know its probably normal but they were the first guys that influenced me and NOBODY ELSE ínpresed me so much as they did 
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