![\"\"](\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/steelarmorFF1.jpg\")
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In the original Final Fantasy<\/em>, about 25% through the game, you come across the town of Melmond.\u00a0 The town has been decimated by the elemental fiend, Lich, and there are tombstones and graves scattered all around the place to denote the carnage that he has brought to this continent.\u00a0 Otherwise there is nothing really of importance in the town other than what\u2019s available at the armor shop.<\/span><\/p>\n Steel Armor, which doesn\u2019t sound like anything that special, but the reality is that it is one of the highest-rated armors in the entire game, quite literally viable until the very end.\u00a0 Its effectiveness is reflected in its cost, which at 45,000 GP is one of the most expensive items in the entire game.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Its availability as early as Melmond is kind of laughable, because at this point of the game the ramping up of difficulty at its worst, and 45,000 GP would require a massive amount of grinding and effort in order to afford.\u00a0 And if you have any sort of meta or any team with mages on it, acquiring their spells is of higher priority, considering the importance of magic to attack enemies, heal allies, and cast Exit, that you\u2019re looking more like needing 60,000 GP if want to mage up and<\/em> get Steel Armor before you head to the Earth Cave.<\/span><\/p>\n By the time you get to the point of the game where 45,000 GP is no big deal, money is flowing like water.\u00a0 There\u2019s a chest somewhere in the Sky Palace that contains like 68,000 GP, and I remember thinking, wtf is this even needed for at this point in the game, because you already have most of the best equipment in the game at that point, and your white mage can heal more HP than spamming heal potions over and over again outside of battle.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n When you have money, money comes easy.\u00a0 When you don\u2019t have money, it\u2019s an agonizing struggle, finding that bridge to where you can get to the land where you can have money.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s usually not worth the effort to go back and get Steel Armor, even in spite of having the airship to whisk you back to Melmond without much effort, there are comparable pieces of armor available, found in the natural progression of exploration and advancing the story, that usually also have some degree of bonus protection instead of the base armor stats.<\/span><\/p>\n Most teams probably aren\u2019t going to have multiple fighters, given the expense of equipping them, and if you don\u2019t actually have a fighter in your team, it\u2019s a moot point because no other class in the game can utilize Steel Armor, so really Steel Armor is kind of obsolete by the time you get to the end of the game.<\/span><\/p>\n The point is, Steel Armor becomes this kind of metaphor of being a reward for those who are capable of putting in the hard work, managing money well, and want to enjoy the fruits of labor at an earlier stage of life, rather than waiting until much later when you have the money, to get something that\u2019s kind of not really needed anymore.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n I made an angsty post of frustration a few days ago, and I try to not make it a habit to flippantly vaguebook like that, but I was really in a bad place and I just needed to let it fly and frankly there\u2019s not many outlets for me to do such I feel, so it just happened.\u00a0 But like I said now and I say now, it\u2019s not like anyone will actually read it so I\u2019m not too concerned about it.<\/span><\/p>\n I don\u2019t know how good of a thing it is to be like this, but there\u2019s a lot of my general state of wellbeing tied to how I feel about my financial standing.\u00a0 That being said, a large part of my recent frustrations and general unhappiness is very much tied to the fact that I\u2019m going through a tremendously rough patch where an avalanche of expenses and debts are collapsing on top of me concurrently, and I\u2019m having a really difficult time trying to keep things together as I try to navigate all this and I currently feel like I can\u2019t see any lights at the ends of any tunnels, and it\u2019s a really dismal and bleak state of existence I feel like I\u2019m in currently.<\/span><\/p>\n It’s tax season, and the 2023 year was brutal and I\u2019m still paying that off, and 2024 is equally brutal, and it\u2019s unavoidable that I\u2019ll have to defer and break up into payments in order to manage it, and inevitably there\u2019s going to be some overlap in payment installments.\u00a0 2025 should be an improvement because I\u2019ve adjusted my pay at work to hold more aside to prepare for such impact next season, but that doesn\u2019t solve the shitshow that this year will be as well.<\/span><\/p>\n My microwave died, which doesn\u2019t sound problematic, considering they can be purchased for like anywhere from $79-200, but when I say my microwave died, I\u2019m referring to my built-into-the-wall microwave + stove unit, to which anyone who\u2019s ever had the misfortune to deal with those knows that they\u2019re costly and generally a pain in the ass.\u00a0 I tried to have it get repaired but the part needed that could fix it isn\u2019t made anymore, and I\u2019m frustrated and full of piss and vinegar at the notion that shit today doesn\u2019t last, considering the unit was 11 years old, while my dad\u2019s 35+ year old microwave still works fine.<\/span><\/p>\n Combined with the dishwasher of mine that\u2019s been dead for three years, I\u2019m looking at probably $5,000-6,000 on the low end to replace both things, and considering the use of those appliances, the sooner would be better.<\/span><\/p>\n Additionally, Aprils and Octobers are when my semi-annual car insurance premiums are always due, and I told myself that I would shop around every half year, but I hardly have an hour to myself a day much less any time to be shopping for insurance, so I\u2019ve had to let another half-year lapse before I get enraged by the constant rising of premiums for no literal reason, and maybe I\u2019ll get my shit together and research new insurance in September.<\/span><\/p>\n Oh yeah, my car registrations are all due, and my car isn\u2019t an issue, but EVs get charged 12 times more in taxes because you don\u2019t use gas, and aren\u2019t micro-paying your taxes every time you fill up the tank.<\/span><\/p>\n Needless to say, it\u2019s a brutal time of life right now, and I\u2019m beyond exasperated.\u00a0 My savings are wiped out, I\u2019m completely incapable of saving, and I\u2019m living paycheck to paycheck, all of the above which are conditions that I\u2019ve always worked my hardest to not be in, in a different point of my life.\u00a0 But I\u2019ve got kids and my own family now, and their needs supersede anything I want for myself, and needless to say, it\u2019s a rough go, and it\u2019s among the daily things I struggle with.<\/span><\/p>\n I have no idea how to find, or what to do to build, the bridge that can get me to the stage of life where I have some money, and where it becomes easy to make more money.\u00a0 I\u2019m completely handcuffed from being able to save, I have basically nothing to work with to try and invest, and I feel like I\u2019m drowning every single month.\u00a0 I don\u2019t even want whatever it could be perceived could be my Steel Armor, I just want to have the GP in the bank to where I don\u2019t have to sweat about every little expense or tax bill or periodic incidental expense that pops up throughout the course of life.<\/span><\/p>\n I feel like if I could just get to a point in my life where I had some GP in the bank, things might possibly become a little easier.\u00a0 I know there are a million metaphors about how mo\u2019 money equals mo\u2019 problems, but I certainly wouldn\u2019t mind being a guinea pig to put that belief to the test.\u00a0 I certainly think a lot of my life\u2019s problems and anxieties would come to a screeching halt if I had an influx of GP to stop a lot of my current bleeding, and get immediately put to work on multiplying itself.<\/span><\/p>\n ***[White Lotus S3 Spoiler]***<\/span><\/p>\n I really wish I could see a rich-ass person doing something really nefarious to where they\u2019d want to feel the compulsion to pay me off without the necessity of me having to explicitly blackmail them.\u00a0 At this point of my life, I\u2019m not above taking some blood money if it were offered to me and I didn\u2019t have to threaten anyone to receive, and hopefully with it, I could solve a lot of my current expenditures, and then have something to build a growing cushion to where I could be at that late state of Final Fantasy where money flows like water.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the original Final Fantasy, about 25% through the game, you come across the town of Melmond.\u00a0 The town has been decimated by the elemental fiend, Lich, and there are tombstones and graves scattered all around the place to denote the carnage that he has brought to this continent.\u00a0 Otherwise there is nothing really of … Continue reading The futile pursuit of Steel Armor<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[36,79,100,93,121,83,69,146,19],"class_list":["post-50534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-angst","tag-cashmoney","tag-comparison","tag-final-fantasy","tag-homeownership","tag-observations","tag-television","tag-triggered","tag-video-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50534"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50534\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50536,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50534\/revisions\/50536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}