@Pangaearocks
Sounds like you're having fun, which is the most important thing, I think.
There are games when spoilers can be bad, but I think, it's not as bad with Terraria, as long as it's just a bit. The guide is helpful, but there are many things he don't really explains, I know I had lots of trouble at the very start, how am I supposed to build a house XD So, I looked it up on the wiki, after got angry that green slimes killed my character like 15 times XD lol But that was long ago.
First playthroughs are special though, and that's why it's still wise to avoid bigger spoilers. I know I was suprised by lots of stuff, like finding clay, or making a sword from shadewood, which had 9 attack, and I was like "Wow!" and I used it for a while. I probably still have it somewhere on a weapon rack. But, later, in next playthroughs, you will play in more "optimised" ways, and many of these discoveries will be normal, or even irrelevant for new playthroughs. When you know you can gain stronger weapons with barely more effort.
As for hardmode, it's bad at first, but it's not that bad. You'll figure out things eventually. It's harder than pre-hardmode, of course, but you also can get much stronger weapons, armor, and accessories.
The V is a tricky thing though. If you're lucky, it will spawn in some favorable way, but if you're not, things can go really uggly too. So, let's hope things will go well.
I generally usually try to quaranteene off the V at the edges with sticky dynamites. Though you can let the biomes spread to areas you don't care about. There are several valuable and interesting loot you can only get from these areas.
The jungle is often referred as the biome that needs to be protected the most, but this is actually only about the surface jungle. And only against evil biomes, because the hallow can't do much with it. Crimson and Corruption however can turn mud to dirt (mud with jungle grass too. it will turn into dirt with crimson grass (in a crimson world), so, repairing that damage is very difficult. the underground (cavern layer) jungle however has its own self-defense mechanism, clorophyte ore. you'll see that from the start of hardmode, clorophyte ore starts to grow in the jungle. it's an interesting and valuable ore you will likely want to mine, once you can (you won't have any tools at the start of hardmode that can mine it) and there will be plenty (and it grows!) to mine lots of it, but at areas where the jungle is facing evil biomes, leave clorophyte veins intact. clorophyte ore (and I read the bricks made from them too) protects its vicinity from the spread of evil. they can protect like a 10~15 blocks radius.
don't worry too much about it, but keep it in mind.
The desert is more vulnerable to spreading biomes. but you don't really need to worry about it much for now, I guess.
As for your eqipments, it looks kind of odd. But this is part of the beauty of first playthroughs. It doesn't looks optimal, but it's nevertheless pretty interesting. Lucky horseshoes are usually crafted with shiny red balloon derivates (e.g. cloud in a balloon) and obsidian skull usually goes into the cobalt shoeld (or water walking boots, or both, since obsidian skull is easy to craft)
By the way, the cellphone shows great dedication, it's pretty impressive you got it.
As for towns, can you show screenshots of your towns?
NPCs sell pylons only, if they're pretty happy. You're right that dyrad, witch doctor and painter makes good neighbors in the jungle, you just also have to build the houses in a way (at least until you get the pylon) that they live close to each other. their housing flags have to be 25 or less blocks from each other, to recognise each other as neighbors.
You could try to build a beach, desert, snow, and cavern town as well, and maybe a glowing mushroom one too. Note that they don't have to be on the surface. forest does, and cavern of course have to be in normal caverns, but the others can be built wherever you want in their respective biome. So, for example, if you don't need a snow town on the surface, but it would come in handy as a fast travel anchor in the underground snow, then build the town there.
as for shells though, I meant the conch shells. you can find them in chests or fish for them. they're rare, but they can help a lot with moving around. the magic conch can be found in desert chests and in oasises (crates, I think), and the lava conch can be fished up from lava (I think. or crates. and might be found in shadow chests, but I'm not sure about that). they teleport you to ocean and hell, respectively.
And, yes, I would generally adwise to go for weapons first, armor after.
Melee class is fun, so, go for it, if you like it. Do try out other classes too though, later or on later playthroughs, they're all fun. Regardless though, you might wanna have some other weapons too with more range, just in case. But melee is fun, yeah.
Good luck!