Saying my characters "imaginary friends" would be a understatement, like every lonely kid I created my own conception of perfect friend in my mind, and rather than leave it, I evolved them, make them complex, add a backstory, a philosophy of their own even if I dont agree with them, I made them have descendants with their own story and so on over all these years, but something interesting happened, they started to interact without me controlling them, don't get me wrong am not crazy or such, is just that their personalities are too complex that I feel they have surpassed me, instead of me controlling them sometimes I feel they are controlling me because I made them too perfect, is not that I cannot control them, I simply don't want to in order to keep the character essence pure. I look to make some other projects like comics or animations or even games just to give them a more tangible form. Of course am proud of them because they were the only thing in my life I consider "perfect" so making them known to the world would be my legacy
...And of course with the arrival of the pony fandom I had to ponify some of them
I don't call them "imaginary friends" just characters of mine with one more chapter in their lives everyday