The NINTH Fractal Writing Contest is over. There were 6 contestants this time, a rather low number that makes me think that creativity has decreased in the steem blockchain! And now, you have to prove me wrong. We had a short story, poems, and haikus -- but no picture, and I'd really like to see one as a follow-up to the fractal or something even remotely related to it. Most people saw something connected to the circle-of-life; for me, it was something more sinister, it looked like the horrid Pallid Mask of the theatrical play the King in Yellow as mentioned by Robert Chamber.

A newcomer, @kaelci, submitted a great short story (!) of a grand religious moment in a fantastic realm and gets the 1st prize for such a creative entry. There are promises of a sequel, too, and I am thrilled to read the next chapter, or the previous or anything in that setting!

The contest post expired with a payout of 2.353 SBD, and the rewards are as follows:

Congratulations to all participants and a big thank you to all upvoters. I'd like to see more participation in these contests and get a bigger reward pool to distribute, so it would be helpful to resteem and/or upvote. If there are enough SBDs made by the contest post, I will try to reward more winners.

By the way -- I was thinking of sending printouts of the fractal to the winners instead of SBD rewards, but I have to check out how to do it first; online on-demand print services, perhaps? If anyone has any suggestions feel free to post them.

This week, the TENTH installment of the Fractal Writing Contest will run.

The Contest

Each post in this contest series will contain a fractal, a 2-dimensional representation of a complex mathematical formula. The participants have to post a comment with something inspired by the fractal, be it just a title, a haiku, a story, whatever.

Rules

• You have to reply with a comment in the contest post.
• The reply must be inspired by the fractal, but no explanation needed.
• Any kind of content is acceptable: just a title, a haiku, a poem, a short story, a painting, a photo, a video, a doodle, whatever. The content must be yours, no links to other people's work accepted.
• I will pick the best reply, when the post expires (1 week after posting it).
• The winner gets half the SBD made in the post, minimum 1 SBD. The rest are split to the other winners: if there are enough SBDs made by the contest post, I will try to reward a 2nd- and 3rd- place winner, as well.
• Upvotes and resteems are welcomed, but not necessary to participate.