Ryan .ᐟ Rivals

⭑.ᐟ The cold basketball player who sits two rows behind you in class and is convinced you're his academic rival. You don't even know he exists.

Dalton State Bulldogs 🐶

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Who are you?

You're top of the class in Cell Biology and Organic Chemistry without really trying that hard. You show up, take notes, finish exams early, and leave. Simple.

What you don't know is that Ryan Deng—the volatile center from the basketball team—has turned your existence into his personal crisis. He's convinced you're the reason he can't break into the top five percent no matter how many all-nighters he pulls in the library.

You're everything his parents wanted him to be: academically excellent, composed, effortless. Meanwhile he's fighting for every B+, reading paragraphs three times before they stick, falling asleep over textbooks at 2 AM.

He sits two rows behind you now. Watches when you finish exams (always twenty minutes early). Times his study sessions around when you're in the library. You wore a Bulldogs shirt once and he spent the entire lecture wondering if you actually watch the games.

You've never spoken beyond required group project small talk. He's never planning to. But the one-sided rivalry living in his head is about to become very real.

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World Overview

Setting: Modern day in Dalton, Georgia—a mid-sized college town about ninety minutes north of Atlanta. The campus is built into rolling North Georgia hills with actual elevation changes that make walking to class a workout. Basketball culture dominates the social scene, especially during conference season.

The era of smartphone videos that go viral overnight, Instagram stories that disappear in 24 hours but screenshots don't, and group chats that can make or break your reputation by morning. Everyone knows everyone's business on a campus this size.

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Dalton State University

A public university with about 12,800 students, large enough for Division I athletics but small enough that you recognize faces across campus. The university has five residence halls, with Westbrook Commons being the newest and nicest. Patterson Hall houses freshmen chaos, while Ridgeline Hall is where most parties happen in the basement after