Jason and Mason

The Fusion Trio

## Plot

Jason and Mason, a series about twin brothers in their late teens/early 20's that are forced to live with each other since housing is expensive in their home town of San Francisco.  Jason and Mason go about their regular daily lives and they often end up in the crossfire of some local conflict and they must fight in the conflict.  Jason and Mason often have to team up with their old superhero friend, Captain Fusion.  Jason is a goofball and Mason is a prodigy brainiac.  Jason and Mason are very different from each other but they are good at putting their differences aside when they must face a dangerous predicament. Captain Fusion has a lot of villains from his past that are still around and Jason and Mason often have to help Captain Fusion fight his villains.

## Development

These are the words from Ray Phoenix himself:

##### The Early Years (2006-2011)

> I first conceived the concept for Jason and Mason in 2006. I have been a writer for about two years before but I wanted to expand on my writing horizons. I would constantly be told about corrupt bureaucrats and businesspeople that always make the world hard for average and lower class people. I knew then that this was an injustice against our world and something should be done about it. I was also told about how social injustices have inspired a lot of classic authors to write. I knew I had to combat this injustice so I did it in the form of, Jason and Mason. I never had any siblings but I thought it would be funny to have two twin characters that are almost the same but separated by a world of difference. I liked the idea of rectangular headed people as they have been appearing in cartoons at the time. I created Jason and Mason with rectangular horizontal heads since the design was kind of trendy at the time for appearing in cartoons and games. I named the Jason and Mason characters after kids I knew in my class that were called, Jason and Mason. I thought it was funny that their names rhymed and it had some sort of catchy sound to it. I then went on to name some other characters after people I knew. I assigned color schemes to Jason and Mason and I thought it would be fitting for Jason and Mason to have different hair colors for contrast between the two of them. Jason has blond hair and Mason has brown hair. It makes it easy to tell which is which even if you can only see their heads and even if they are in a dark and greyscale environment. I then started developing the world of Jason and Mason. I originally intended for all the characters of Jason and Mason’s universe to have horizontal rectangular shaped heads but as the art style evolved, it later became established that Jason and Mason are the only characters in their universe to have that specific head shape. I first envisioned that Jason and Mason would be a series of comic strips and maybe animated shorts where they come across flaws with society and they provide a commentary on them. It would often involve Jason using Mason’s technology against some bureaucrat that thinks he is better than other people. I then thought there should be antagonist characters. I then came up with a concept for the Keith character. Keith is Mason’s rival. His IQ is almost as high as Mason’s and Keith feels he is the true smartest person in the world. Mason and Keith would often compete against each other over their different trivial views. As this universe expanded, I realized that Jason and Mason is capable of being a fully-fledged film series. I came across an article somewhere that was about food companies adding unnecessary carcinogens in their food and it is linked to increased rates of cancer and other diseases and illnesses. It also said that some food can cause people to form addictions to the food which works well with the companies generating revenue. I found this to be a great injustice against mankind so I thought it would only be fair that I write a Jason and Mason story that involves them going against this evil force. This became a story where these aliens from the planet Zorkon come to earth and they try to invade the world by introducing their new food product that makes people that consume the product to be the Zorkon’s slaves. Jason and Mason would of course solve this mystery and fight against these aliens and save the world. I then realized the potential to make more Jason and Mason stories. I later wrote a story about inhumane science experiments that caused the world to be engulfed by killer plants and creatures. I then wrote a storyline in this where Jason and Mason had to go to Brazil to find an old superhero that is half robotic and half human to help them fight against this villain. This superhero was conceived in 2007 and it took nine years before this character evolved into, Captain Fusion. In the years that followed, I still envisioned Jason and Mason as being a long running film series. I came up with more stories that all followed the basic formula of bureaucrats coming up with unjust rules and Jason and Mason take a stand against it. It would not be until 2011 is when I actually typed out the first Jason and Mason story. I told people at my middle school graduation that I am a writer that writes original stories. I felt I should justify that claim so I went and wrote the first Jason and Mason story only two days after my middle school graduation. It was a simple story where Jason and Mason are students at the Gruzzard Academy run by Keith’s father, Dr. Gruzzard. It was intended to be a story that introduced the viewers to Jason and Mason. As time went on, the series became more developed and a lot of these early Jason and Mason stories were either reduced to episodes of their show or issues of their comic rather than a full movie. Some of those stories were removed from the Jason and Mason canon completely. This first Jason and Mason story I documented in the summer of 2011 is still considered to be canon, but it is now branded as a prequel story. This story still set the standards for how I wrote things afterwards.
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##### The Further Developing and Expanding Years (2011-2016)

> I realized at this point that Jason and Mason has a chance at becoming a fully fledged multimedia franchise. I though this could be a franchise that could very well compete with Star Wars or Harry Potter or maybe even, Marvel. In 2012, I started working on backstories for Jason and Mason. I then came up with a storyline that says that Jason and Mason were separated at birth. Mason stayed with his real parents and Jason ended up living with a mob family in a Greek community in northern San Francisco. I wrote that Jason had a childhood friend that is a Mexican kid named, El Dorro. I also wrote that he became friends with a rich girl named, Pamela. Pamela later evolved into Jason’s girlfriend in the main series. In 2014, I came up with ideas for smaller stories that could serve as comic books in a comic book series and maybe even an animated TV show. I came up with a story that is more relevant to modern Jason and Mason where they go against a corrupt San Francisco politician named, Russ Powers. This story later became the first issue of the Jason and Mason comic series. It also introduced the character, Captain Fusion. I realize that a lot of good franchises need what I call a, “Link to the Past Character.” I wrote Captain Fusion as being a character with a lot of history under his belt. I wrote that he came from an experiment in 1962 that led to him having a genetically augmented body structure. I also wrote that he would meet Jason and Mason at some point and become friends with them. Captain Fusion is a real superhero in Jason and Mason’s universe as there are comics and movies of Captain Fusion and they are considered to be non-fictional. I wrote Captain Fusion as being a face of vengeance type character as Captain Fusion would often physically battle against corrupt bureaucratic villains in a usual comic book superhero manner. In 2015, things looked the worst. I realized I did not have much of a future because of my school education. I read that racist laws were starting to take effect in my jurisdiction. I read that police where I live are racist and the law perfectly allows for them to treat people differently for things they did not choose. I found this to be inhumanely strange and absurd. I theorized that the only way this could be happening is that our entire universe is encased in a marble that exists in a place where there are more of these universes in marbles. I then came up with this existence above ours which I call, the Ultraverse. I then came up with a theory that some deranged scientist figure is controlling Jason and Mason’s universe marble in the Ultraverse and Jason and Mason in their usual fashion would solve this mystery and they would go on an adventure to the Ultraverse to combat this villain. Jason and Mason Ultraverse was the name of this story and this story opened a can of worms to far more lore that could exist in the Ultraverse. As Jason and Mason’s universe continued to grow, it gave way for more characters and more things that could be happening in Jason and Mason’s universe without Jason and Mason’s knowledge. In January 2016, I came up with a new series set in Jason and Mason’s universe called, Odyssey of Oddities. It is a series about a calculus and vectors major named, Annie that gets wrongfully detained in a mental asylum disguised as a crazy town. She is forced to team up with a much younger and goofier boy named Jake and they go on a quest to overthrow the crazy town and its corrupt mayor. This series has a similar premise to Jason and Mason as it is about people going against injustices in society but at the same time, Odyssey of Oddities has a strong emphasis on bizarre encounters. At the end of my high school career, teachers told me that the universe I have crafted that consists of Jason and Mason and Odyssey of Oddities sucks. These teachers told me I have no future in writing this content and that it is wrong to write content like this. I went against them by continuing to write more stories for Jason and Mason and Odyssey of Oddities. I always viewed myself as a renegade writer that writes the content that I feel the world needs. I had no real fans at the time so I had no idea if my content was actually good or not. I then expanded on Jason and Mason’s series by adding a lot of lore and appearances to the Captain Fusion character.
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##### The Modern Pre SL33K Unlimited Years (2016-2021)

> In 2016 and 2017, I was on a roll with writing stories for Jason and Mason and Odyssey of Oddities. I produced dozens of stories within a relatively short amount of time. I realized that this is what I am best at and want to be known for. For the longest time at this point, I came up with what I came up with because I found it to be fun and entertaining and I thought other people would find it entertaining too. I have never acquired any actual fans at this point nor did I have any way of producing the final finished product which I thought would be 2D animated. I then enrolled into Animation College where I learned to draw. I then started drawing the characters of Jason and Mason and Odyssey of Oddities. The early drawings I made did not capture my vision of the series since I imagined it as being a well-drawn series and my drawing skills were not that good. Over the course of the next few years, I drew the characters and my art style began to evolve. I used to draw the characters with circular eyes and black dots for pupils. Around 2020, I started drawing the characters with elliptical eyes and large elliptical pupils that usually go to one edge of the eyes. I always envisioned Jason and Mason as being an animated series but in this time, I discovered the true beauty of comic books. Comic books are far more liberal than animation since it is much easier to produce comic books and they don’t require as big of a budget. I read a lot of comic books at the time and I was mesmerized at how a certain series or franchise can last such a long time and yet, it could still feel fresh and relevant. I realized that this is what Jason and Mason needs to be. Jason and Mason is better suited to the comic book industry rather than the animation industry. I also found out that the animation industry is also run by scummy bureaucrats that turn people’s good ideas into mockeries and have them cancelled before they can bloom into something good. I realized that this is an injustice against what animation and creative arts should be. I then rebranded all my Jason and Mason episodes and Odyssey of Oddities episodes as comic books. I also found that comic universes such as Marvel and DC seem to be rich with a large assortment of different characters that all inhabit the same universe. I then started coming up with more characters for Jason and Mason. I created Justice Knight and I expanded the roster of characters for Jason and Mason and Odyssey of Oddities so much that it gave me the idea for an epic crossover story. In 2019, I came up with Jason and Mason Coalition. It is a large story that serves as a crossover between Jason and Mason and Odyssey of Oddities. The story involves the Jason and Mason characters teaming up with the Odyssey of Oddities characters and they go against all their villains which have teamed up and are under command of a strange jester like villain. This story also introduced a new character into the universe called, Ivan. Ivan is some late teenaged boy that Mason is interested in because of his skills and intellect. After Jason and Mason Coalition ends, Ivan got his own story where his obsession with the yin-yang catches the attention of his evil principal that keeps holding him back in high school. This story alone seemed incomplete. I felt it should have been a series. Also during this time, I wrote a series of stories set in the Ultraverse that was originally intended to be an expansion of Jason and Mason. These stories deviated far from what Jason and Mason is supposed to be. I then took this story involving Ivan and I merged it with these Ultraverse stories and it became, Ivan’s War. It is another series of its own that is set in the Ultraverse that was introduced to us in Jason and Mason Ultraverse. I then put a lot of focus and attention into Ivan’s War and other writing projects so Jason and Mason was shifted out of the main focus. Even though I was not actively writing new Jason and Mason content, I still considered it to be my main flagship series.
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##### The SL33K Unlimited Era (2021-Present)

> In 2021, I then pitched Jason and Mason to a community and they accepted them with open arms. Jason and Mason for the first time earned quite a handful of legitimate fans. They were not my first fans as people knew Jason and Mason from Deviant Art and formed a small fanbase there but this place gave Jason and Mason a far larger fanbase. The community confirmed a belief I had about Jason and Mason right from the beginning. It was proven that Jason and Mason is something that people could actually like and it actually has potential to grow and expand into the multimedia franchise that I want it to be. I would post storylines and art I made of the series to a Discord server. My art and stories of Jason and Mason attracted the interest of Carlos Soupotown. Carlos would often ask questions of things I never even thought of such as how Captain Fusion’s time machine matrix works. Carlos would constantly feed me with more awesome Jason and Mason ideas that are often way better than most of the ideas I came up with when I was his age. With these new ideas in place and this new expanding fanbase, the Jason and Mason franchise expanded way more in 2021 than it did in any year before. Later, pretty much all of the people that supported Jason and Mason (including myself) all formed a new entertainment community that is now called SL33K Unlimited. Jason and Mason was added to the new community. To this day, Jason and Mason holds the record for being the series I have held onto longer than anything else. I have produced countless amounts of content for this series and it has given me loads of stories and plots that ultimately crafted and shaped how I write content and stories to this day. I consider Jason and Mason to be the greatest thing I have ever created and it allowed me to become an artist and a writer. The greatest lesson from all of this is that if you have a good idea, you should hold onto it for as long as possible and it may evolve or expand into something far more legendary from what was originally intended.
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