Linkin park, now and forever

The first time I heard them…. I think it was in 5th grade. I heard “One step closer” on MTV. Creeped me out royally. Mike's red hair, the wacked out blonde screaming "Shut up!" Very nice.
By then, I already had the makings of a LP lover, I could be very anti-social and had an interesting dark outlook on life. I was quiet when alone, and known to be very tough around the edges. I met Anima-bid in 5th. We were in the same class. We didn’t talk that much, but enough to say we were friends. I got to know him better in 6th. The next time I heard them, it was early 7th grade. I heard “Numb” and really liked it. The voices intrigued me. Around that time I wasn’t doing very well in school or at home, and I just was a breakdown waiting to happen. I didn’t like school that much, I still don’t . Probably never will.

I had begun writing a little, but not so much. I wrote to vent a little anger, and somehow it came out in poetry form. I liked to write, but detail wasn’t my strongest point. I started my first story, which I’m still working on, only it’s changed a lot. Later on, I heard “Breaking the habit” And instantly fell in love with the lead singer’s voice. I had know idea who they were, or anything else, I just liked that one song, it seemed to fit me. I was changing rapidly at this point, starting to find my likes and dislikes. I was tuned toward metal, alternative and rock. I like a little hip hop and R&B thrown in as well. I didn’t like rap that much.
I really loved Evanescence. Amy Lee was the best to me. She still kinda is. I had a similar experience when I started listing to Evanescence.
Night: She’s still kinda hot.
You’re still kinda sick Night. Chaz is hot, we’ve been over this before.
Night: I’m a guy, why would I say Chaz is hot?
Cuz it’s true.
Night: -___-

Without a lot of access to the internet, I was basically deprived of the song I found myself humming often, trying desperately to learn the words. The end of 7th grade came, and I seemingly forgot all about Linkin park, and tried hard to finding footing in my now screwed up beyond belief life.

I met Spearow1333 when I entered 8th grade. She was the most adorable 7th grader I had EVER seen. We found common ground and I got to know her. We’re still friends today, after all the craziness we’ve been through. Around the middle of my 8th grade year, I heard “In the end”. I recognized the leader’s voice instantly and remembered “Breaking the habit” So I set out again to find the artist. I soon found out who they where, thanks to my Godmother getting an XM radio.

Linkin park…

The sounds reminded me of Evanescence, with rap. I really liked the rap, due to the fact I was in to Ciara and Beyonce by now. I heard “Numb” again and then “Numb/encore”. Hearing Jay-z made me really want to see what Linkin park was all about. I had now heard a lot about them and wanted more.
Here I heard “Where’d you go”. I liked it I thought the voice was sweet. I recognized the rapper’s voice and learned his name:

Mike Shinoda.
Please note, I forgot it very quickly. I learned it like 6 times before it stuck.
Night: *shakes head*

I thought he was kinda cute. I loved his name. I learned some more about Fort minor and Mike, knowing that he was part of Linkin park as well. I prayed they hadn’t broken up.

My life went haywire then, my mother and I at each others’ necks, never agreeing. Yelling and arguing, it was pretty bad. It got so bad she left the country repeatedly. I wish I had someone or something to relate to, but nothing really happened. I moved awkwardly through my 8th grade year. Linkin park’s music helped me through it some, listening to the lyrics, relaxing, day dreaming. The lead singer’s voice often calmed me down. Soothing at sometimes, and the screaming helped me get over my growing depression.

The end of 8th grade was nearing when I got my cell phone, that could record pieces of songs. My mom’s friend got a new computer, complete with high speed internet connection. In return for me helping out with babysitting her....5 kids, I got compete access to the computer.
About here, I became total and absolute Naru-tard. That summer I began using You tube to watch episodes of Naruto in Japanese, as well as watch tributes to the show and characters. I loved Sasuke and he often had tributes to his life and his fights with Naruto to Linkin park songs. That kinda annoys me now, it’s getting old, and often enough, the AMV’s suck. Anyway, at that point, It was great for me because I favorited tons of versions of the songs “Breaking the habit”, “Numb”, “In the end” and “Numb/Encore”. I finally found myself in some peace as I recorded the songs to my cellphone and listening them repeatedly, learning the songs. I had begun seriously writing, thinking about writing fan fictions and writing in general. The music inspired me in a way.

I heard the remixed version of “Crawling” and once again fell for the lead singer’s voice. I still had no idea who he was. But at least I knew Mike.
Some what.
I learned the words to “Crawling” and decided to hear some more of their songs. I couldn’t listen to those few over and over again, even though that’s what I was doing. I heard the remixed version of “Faint” and loved it. I thought the mix of music was amazing and wanted more.

9th grade came, and I was swept up into life as a high schooler, annoyed by the “freshman” and “frosh” comments. I was a great big bottle of anger at this point, never knowing if I would explode or not. Listening to music calmed me down often enough.
Spearow1333 was kind enough to start making me various cds, consisting of music we both enjoyed. We have similar tastes still. She knew I liked Linkin park and made me a cd with some of their songs on it. Later on, a friend of mine from middle school, Rose, noticed my liking of Linkin park. She was listening to Hybrid theory, and I listened to some of it too.
Today, Rose loves Linkin Park more than ever, and is a writer and editor on the Lpfiction boards. My buddy.
It was weird to me at first, but I found myself pulled toward the music. My life starting spiraling downward again, but not as bad as the year before. I began keeping a diary of sorts, ranting and writing fan fictions. Most of my thoughts revolved around themes of Linkin park songs, and I wrote down the songs to help me remember them. I quickly learned the lyrics. Here is when Night was “born”. He was always with me, but he never really manifested himself until this point in time. The way he looked changed a lot, but is now defiant. I decided this a while after I listened to “Papercuts.” I didn’t really know the whole song, but enough. I didn’t even know it was called “Papercut”, I thought that was weird because “papercut” had nothing to do with the song.
Well, it does... Buuuuuuuuuuuuuut. Whatever.
I brushed that off.

My mom got a new computer as an apology, though saying it was hers. (That computer is now what we often come to blows about.)

Finally I could use You tube and listen to as much Linkin park as my heart wanted! Slowly, I looked into their albums. I ended up borrowing my friend’s Hybrid theory album and listening to it. I loved the songs, and I was still captivated by the lead singer voice.

Night: She still didn’t know who he was.

Yep, I only knew Mike. The music annoyed my mother, she dubbed it as “loud, grating and screaming”. She had said the same thing about Evanescence, so I thought nothing of it. I knew it was loud. I played it loud. I like it loud. I loved it, and started learning the songs that I had never heard before. All the songs seemed to click with me, so I loaded the songs to my computer, and enjoyed them happily.
Here is were I joined deviantART. Doc-fruit kept telling me to get over You tube and try deviant art. I’m glad he did. I love my deviant family.

I still felt like I didn’t know the band well enough and decided to buy an album myself. I had heard all of Hybrid theory, Faint, and Breaking the habit. Somehow, I knew there was more. I picked up the album called “Reanimation” because I liked the crawling remix so much. Reanimation introduced me to other songs I hadn’t heard before, and I was impressed with the remixes. I liked Mike’s rapping, I always have, but I thought the “In the end” remix was great. I loved the “With you” remix and “My December” remix held a spot for me. One step closer was great to me, the remix kinda made me smile. But today I like the originals better.

I was swept up again in life and had a sight break down in the middle of December, before Christmas and before I submitted my first deviation. How would know that the music of Linkin park would help me get though it? It did. Listening to it got me back on my feet somehow and I pushed ahead. I met Brocko18 who also got me up too. I kinda wanted to get to know him so I pushed myself to stop the angsting and relax. In late December, I submitted my first deviation to deviantART, entitled “Twilight”. I dove into writing poems and stories, finding as a sort of outlet from the real world. I liked to write, and I noticed that I was, as a matter of fact, getting better at it.

Coming back to a sort of sense of life, and started wanting more of Linkin park. I was still utterly fascinated by the lead singer’s voice, and I wanted to know who he was. I wanted to learn about the band.

Enter Wikipedia, A site I found earlier when I was waiting for Naruto to be subbed. It was a great help to me. I learned about the band a little, skimming through the article. I wasn’t really paying attention I was just looking for the lead singer.

Chester Bennington…..
Cue massive giggling.

The fact that there was no picture annoyed me to all ends of the earth. So I looked and found some of him. I was surprised because I never thought he’d look so…… cute. I thought his tattoos were cool. Everything about him seemed… great. I thought of him as quite the odd ball

Night: Here we go…..

I went in to a head long search for the rest of their music. So I went back to You Tube, looking for live performances. I thought Chester was amazing and I wanted more. As I kept learning more about his life, and learned some more about Mike as well. I was very impressed by all their music and went out a bought the Live in Texas DVD/CD. I felt complete in a sense. I was once again amazed by Chester’s voice, he sounded amazing live and on cd! I went around looking up most of their songs, listening to each of them, picking out my favorites, even though I loved them all. At first, my favorite song was “Breaking the habit”, it being the first song I heard and liked by LP. It changed to “Faint” quickly. Eventually, I learned with songs belonged to which albums, and I found that I leaned more toward Meteora than Hybrid theory. So I downloaded all the songs off that cd. I love the music more than ever now. Linkin park became my favorite band, and I never really had a good day until I listened to them. I picked out a few songs as ring tones, so I never went through a day without hearing Chester’s voice.

In the beginning of March, I heard that a new Linkin park cd was coming. I was so happy, glad to know they didn’t break up. I haven’t been that happy since I found out that Naruto Shippuden was coming. That was a bit of a let down. Oh well. The CD would make it okay again. I wanted to learn as much as possible, to keep me busy as the waiting began for their new cd to be released. I learned about the Linkin park underground, and made up my mind to become a member, once I knew as much as I could. I knew I was a pretty hardcore fan, but I really wanted to know as much as I possibly could. So I did some deviantART searches, hoping to find some art on my favorite band, or more specifically, Chester and Mike.

I searched for awhile, picking out some really great works of art before I finally came across a detailed drawing of Chester and Mike.
Kissing.
HUH?!
I was slightly confused by this, I didn’t know about that. I read some of the comments only to find out it was a slash pairing. I didn’t really know what slash was, but the word “pairing” gave me a good idea. I thought it was interesting, to say the least. I was already a yaoi fangirl in a sense. I’m rather picky about it. The only reason I knew about yaoi in the first place was because of Naruto. I found some other pictures like that, some of the amazingly cute. I also found some real pictures of Mike and Chaz together, often hugging, kissing, or doing some pretty weird things. Still looked cute to me. Some of the things they did made me twitch, but in a good way. So, I kept going looking around and learning, but those pictures in the back of my mind were driving me insane. I finally decided against Night’s better judgment, and looked in to the thing called slash.

Lpfiction.com. That’s what the web site was called. It registered as another fan fiction site in my mind so I browsed around already knowing about fan fiction, being a fanfic writer myself.. I finally picked a story, called “Bloodlust”. (I met the author here on dA, MUSICxxJUNKIE) I have a thing with blood for some strange other worldly reason. When I finished reading it, I sat at my computer for a minute letting it all soak in. After all I’d learned about Linkin park, this is the one thing I never paid attention to. And somehow, it all seemed alright to me. So I continued reading the stories, picking out ones that I liked. I always seemed to lean toward angst and humor a little fluff here and there. I enjoyed the stories I read, even crying at the end of some. The stories were well written for the most part, funny, and a lot very sad.

Night: You forgot to mention what goes on in the stories, Kyo. I mean, the stories weren’t always…..cute, per se. I mean, Mpreg, angst, rape, angst, rape, angst, drugs, angst, fluff, chains, whips, and leather. Did I mention some were intensely angsty? Behind Grey eyes ring a bell?

*cough* Well, you know. They weren’t rated R and NC-17 for no reason. Besides, I knew plenty about those things already, and they added to the effect of the story. It only took awhile before I wrote one myself. Fluffy little story called “Fangirl’s diary.” I’m in the process of writing a few more, “Chester’s sweet tooth” “Devious thoughts” and “Impossible”.
That's something I usually keep between Me, Lee, and Cj.

With May 15th approaching, I was becoming antsy waiting. So I spent some time looking up more pictures of Mike and Chester and learning more about the other band members, until I knew them all. Moving back to You Tube, I watched some tributes and found that Chester was much loved. By this point in time, I thought he was hot, for a lack of better words.

Night: You thought he was drop dead sexy. You said so yourself, and still do.

This is true. Mike is and always will be adorable in my mind. And Rob? He’s the drummer. Need I say more? To be frank, I thought they all we’re cute during Meteora, then I kinda leaned toward Mike, Chaz and Rob. What can I say?

Soon, I started watching some interviews and laughed at the band’s silly antics. They always brought a smile to my face. The making of the videos were fun too. May 15th was now mere weeks away, and I was running out of things to do.
I learned the name of the new album:
Minutes to Midnight.
I went out and preordered it. Wandering around You tube, I heard about Chester’s solo stuff. I knew well that Mike had stuff on the side, Fort Minor, which I love. One of the few time I’ll listen to rap. I was a little surprised that Chester had solo stuff. I knew about Gray daze and Snow white tan though. I really love his voice, so when I heard his solo stuff, I was like O__O HOTTNESS *drools* It was great. I like “Let down” a lot, it once again, shows off Chester’s impressive range. “The morning after” was good too. Although, I was thinking something else before I heard it.
I knew a lot about Mike’s side project, Fort minor, And I contemplated buying their cd, The rising tied. I decided against, thinking my mother would already be pissed about me getting their new cd. The rap would send her flying over the edge. I listened to Mike’s songs via You tube, and I liked his style, it reminded me in a sense of a sort of “cleaner” version of Eminem. The two rappers took their place as my two favorites. “Red to black", "Back home", "Slip out the back" "The Hard way" and "Be somebody" became favorite of mine.

I formulated my own opinion of Linkin park, having met some haters. It was nothing new to me, I’ve met Naruto haters, anime haters, so on and so forth. I just learned to ignore them. I sent notes to join Shinoda fans, Chaz fans and Linkin park fans here on deviant art, and met some fans as well. I really cared nothing for the haters, and I just figured something quite simple. Music is about opinions and preferences. Like people, preferences vary. I like what I like, you like what you like. No need to be nasty about it.

I grew bored waiting and dove into reading slash. Angst was good to me, and I improved my writing just by reading other people’s work. My mood improved as the days grew closer. I got a few of my friends addicted to Linkin park as well as slash. I met new fans here on deviant, things were looking up. I’ve dealt with a lot of crap because I like Linkin park, from my mother mostly. Sometimes even my friends. Well not really, I was getting somewhat obsessed, but I wasn’t the one reading yaoi/smut/porn all the time.

Night: Yeah, slash doesn’t count.

It was fluff and you know that!

Night: I just like messing with you!

I still kept waiting. My Naruto obsession began to cool off, I only tuned in every once in a while. I was far ahead in the tv series and pretty well ahead in the manga. I stopped caring for a little while, just asking, and reading spoilers. My Linkin park obsession came to full swing. As happy as I was, I still could hold off the looming depression that was over my head. It pounded on me, yet I ignored it, only falling a few times. I felt sick, and actullay became very sick, but I didn't know it at the time.

There was only a few weeks left. In that time, I realized, I hadn’t watched like any of the music videos. On You tube, I subscribed to Linkinparktv, so I could watch the episodes of LPTV. Later I found others that uploaded the entire episodes. That was amusing watching the band on the road. Realizing I had only seen a few, maybe two at most, of their music videos, I watched the music videos, and ended up twitching insanely. The videos were…weird to say the least. But I did like In the end. From the inside and Faint are my favorite music videos. Finally, I got to hear QWERTY or Behind your lies. It was great, but I prefer it live. I do often enough prefer their music live. The music video to “What I’ve done” was a little weird to me. I was surprised by their change, but I took it in stride, not judging it first thing. Besides, Mike and Chester are hot in leather.
Night: So you’ve told us.
Secondly, I thought of the change in a more... mature way. They made their change because they wanted to. I've noticed that they have a much wider fanbase because of their new album, and I like it.

The leak of the album came as a surprise to me. I really wanted to hear the cd, but I decided to wait. It wasn’t much longer anyway.

My waiting and watching brought me to the old episodes of LPTV, the making of Meteora. Meteora being my favorite album, I watched all nine episodes in one sitting. The band in their 20’s made me giggle insanely, they were way too cute. ‘specially Mike. *shakes head* WAY too cute.

I began a new diary/writing note book, waiting for the cd. My old one filled up fast, with ideas and dreams. My story in blood poems were written there, I added “Easier to run” when I posted them. That song became one of my favorites in an instant.

With 3 days left until Minutes to Midnight was released, I made up my mind to listen to every single Linkin park song I knew. It made me feel great, and I brushed the depression off, hoping to keep it away till I had the cd. But it came back full force, only effecting me outside of school. Keeping a so called happy face was hard, so I ended up over doing it and doing some stupid/foolish things. I appeared full of energy, but I really wasn’t. I felt crappy. What could I do but wait? I listened to my favorite mix of songs, picking myself up for a time. I finally sat down and picked my favorite songs. Easier to run, Faint, From the inside, Hit the floor, Papercut, and Breaking the habit. I’m truly a Meteora girl. This made me feel somewhat better but, An after school gift finally got me out from my funk.

Minutes to Midnight. I had waited for it, knowing it could totally flop in my mind. It was exactly what I need to stave off the depression and really get me going again. I was happy again. The songs just made me feel better. I could relate to them.

I’ve started writing again, getting over the writers’ block that’s been on me. I get up and hop around my house, listening to Bleed it out. I sleep to the Little things give you away. I calm down and relax to Leave out all the rest. I just feel a little normal again. M2M has started to push me to take a good look at myself. What do I want? I can’t keep putting it off. It’s time I looked at myself.

For now, I've become different. I write in a differnt style, a more mature style. I think of things in a deeper sence. I simply do things in my own time.I still have so much to learn though. I've made tons of friends that I truely care about.

And here I am today.
Been a fan for 3 years.
Been a hardcore fan for about a year now.
Hoping to go to the concert one day.
Getting ready to join Linkin park underground.
Talking to new friends, fans of the band that I can relate with.
Listening to the music that lets me escape into my own world.
I’m glad I heard Numb and Breaking the habit three years ago.
I’m glad I can stand here and recite a Meteora song without messing up.
I can tell you every band member and at least one fact about them.
I’m glad I found Linkin park. I truly am proud to be called a Linkin park fangirl.
Linkin park obsessor.
A Linkin park fan.