FWA 2026: Day 3

Funnily, Day 3 was probably the day where I spent the least amount of time in the actual con itself, as it was mall day. For starters, me and Oscar went back to the Vendor Hall, both to look around and get some extra stuff we might've missed, though Oscar also went because he wanted to see a specific vendor, but apparently they were only there SUPER early so he missed them, but he still got some extra stuff regardless, while I picked up an extra badge and a shirt I wanted to get but didn't get the previous day.

After we got out of there, I drove us out to the Cumberland Mall, about a 15 minute drive from downtown Atlanta, it's technically in Marietta but it's still Atlanta regardless, driving there wasn't TOO annoying surprisingly despite it being Atlanta, but likely due to it still being somewhat early. When we got there we admittedly didn't really buy anything, just looked around and went into a few stores, though Oscar bought some chips from this store he had found, we were mainly there because the place had a Round1 anyways, he was a bit more focused on the rhythm games since Round1 has stuff like Bemani games and Taiko, while I focused more on like, the specialized games that these places tend to have, even if all they amount to is just a way to get tickets. Which by the way, most redemption arcades like these are just total scams, you have to spend SO MANY credits just to earn enough tickets on games to potentially get the "higher" value items to the point where you're just better off spending the money to buy stuff like that outright, like no, I'm not grinding to get 80,000 tickets to buy a PS5 when I can just work for about a month and get enough money to outright buy a PS5, know what I mean? Anyways, I'm rambling off-topic again.

We went to The Cheesecake Factory afterwards to eat since it's a place I haven't been to in a LOOOOONG time, plus I know they have a massive menu so we'd basically be guaranteed to find something we'd like to eat, which we both did, Oscar got some sandwiches while I got a pasta dish, it was pretty good but was a lot of food so we got it to go, with the two of us going back inside the mall to get some milkshakes, since there was a Haagen-Dazs stand in there, though we only got a small size since we were already pretty full from properly eating. Drove back to the hotel afterwards too, stopping by a QuikTrip to get some gas, though also had some slight trouble getting back due to Atlanta being a bit of a maze to navigate, even with proper navigation, but we made our way back, putting on my suit for I think what was the first time that day.

I went back into the Marriott, going into that fursuiter picture room where I had met someone who wanted to get a pic with me (as pictured on the right), before I headed back to the game room to kill time, though admittedly was kind of tired afterwards, think it was a combo of walking around all day, the driving, eating, etc. etc. So I didn't spend a lot of time actually in the con, going back to the hotel at around like 8 PM while Oscar was busy doing his thing, mainly dancing and going to parties and whatnot, while I stayed in the hotel watching and doing stuff on my phone and laptop, though when he came back around two hours later we talked a lot and had some pretty good laughs over stuff, especially when we were watching some older Smosh videos, think I was laughing so hard I was almost crying at one point.

Final day of the con