Basic Trope: A character who is presumed to be imaginary, but turns out to be real.
- Straight: Bob tells everyone about his friend Maria. Everyone thinks he's making her up, but the audience knows that she's real. The other characters may or may not find out later.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob describes Maria accurately, and his stories about her are completely believable. And yet, everyone doubts her existence until the second they see her in the flesh.
- Every character in the story has some other character who doubts their existence.
- Downplayed:
- Maria is real, but some of Bob's stories about her are made up.
- Bob is a minor character.
- Justified:
- Maria lives out of town, and has never had a chance to meet Bob's other friends.
- Maria is a Shrinking Violet who avoids contact with Bob's friends.
- All of Bob's stories about Maria are real, but some are hard to believe, so it's understandable that Bob's friends think he's bluffing.
- Bob actually does have imaginary friends, so seeing as Maria is never seen, they think she's just one of them.
- Bob is a young child and Maria never shows herself to his parents. In addition, Maria is naughty or has a Sweet Tooth, so Bob's parents think he made her up to avoid trouble or get extra candy.
- Bob is delusional, so his friends think Maria is one of his delusions.
- Bob is not delusional, but his father is, so his friends mistakenly think he inherited his father's delusional tendencies.
- Inverted:
- Maria is imaginary, and yet everyone thinks she's real.
- Maria is real, but Bob only ever meets her when they're alone and no one else has ever heard of her. Eventually Bob starts believing he's cracked and Maria is just a hallucination.
- Subverted: "Maria" meets Bob's friends at Alice's house, but she turns out to be an actress Bob hired to play her.
- Double Subverted: ...Because the real Maria was too busy to come and meet them.
- Parodied: Bob walks into a bar alone, and tells everyone that his invisible friend Maria is with him. They believe him.
- Zig Zagged: Maria is never shown to the audience, and the creators give conflicting answers to viewers' questions regarding her existence.
- Averted: No one doubts the existence of anyone they hear about.
- Enforced: "We need a reason for Alice, Carl, and Damian not to trust Bob. Let's have Bob talk about a friend who appears to be imaginary, but just lives in another town."
- Lampshaded: "And this is my friend, Maria." "What? Maria's real? ...Oh wait, I knew that."
- Invoked: Maria intentionally avoids Bob's town in order to confuse the other characters.
- Exploited: ???
- Defied:
- Maria makes the time to meet Bob's other friends.
- Bob shows the others a photo of Maria.
- Bob lets his friends talk to Maria on the phone.
- Discussed: "I wonder if Maria really exists?" "I promise you she does, but it may take me a while to prove it to you. She lives three towns over, and has a very busy schedule, so I don't even get to see her much. Usually, I have to settle for phoning her."
- Conversed: "So all this time, Maria was real? I thought Bob was out of his nonexistent mind."
- Implied: Alice, Carl, and Damian have visibly shocked expressions when they see Maria for the first time.
- Played For Laughs: Maria is treated as an urban legend like Bigfoot; Bob's friends spend much of their time studying supposed "sightings" of her.
- Played for Horror: The reason Maria is never seen by Bob's other friends is because she's a ghost and he's a medium.
Maybe your "Not-So-Imaginary Friend" is hiding on the main page.
