"Finished" characters?

i don't believe my characters are ever finished! even my ridiculously fleshed out characters i could probably write a book abt aren't 'finished' tbh :0 there's always new things to find out abt them u know?
if i feel like i'm having trouble continuing to push a character thru a plot (like kinda milking it w/ them) that just means it's time for another AU ;D i have a human AU but now that that's super duper full of shit, i've got a human AU the 2nd which is like... alternate human AU where one (1) thing didn't happen and that changes EVERYTHING somehow...

anyway i don't wanna ramble too much but basically what i'm tryin to get at is characters always have potential! even after five+ years for some OCs i'm still developing new things w/ them :3

I consider profiles complete when i feel like what i want to convey about the character is conveyed but the character themselves are never complete. I tend to roleplay with my characters too so there is something constantly happening, something constantly being discovered and figured out. Different dynamics with ships or other characters or updates to plot and storylines. Things like that. AU's are sometimes created too and those can range from AU's in fandom's or AU's in the more general since.

So i don't think, at least for me my characters are ever really finished. Even if some are more in depth than others i'm still constantly working on then and trying to flush them out and eventually that might end up reflecting in their profile later.

Thanks for your replies, it was interesting. Seems like AUs are a good way to keep your interest into characters. But I never really managed to give AU's to my characters.... I'm just not into that.
I guess I just lost interest in some of my older characters. I created them 10  years ago and roleplayed a lot with them, developped them a lot, they're fully fleshed out, and, sure, there's still lots of things to discover about them, but nothing much important. However, it seems like I've grown and changed interests, and I do not feel like working on these characters anymore. There might be lots to do about them, but it doesn't sparkle my creative mind, and I cannot roleplay anymore. Then they're just staying here and, as I changed interests and got new characters sinces, I'm not much thinking about them anymore. They're not much in my mind. But they're still in my heart, as they're quite old characters, and they were so important to me. As a teen, roleplay was everything to me. I would spend my days at it, and met some of my friends (and even my girlfriend) through roleplaying with these guys. That's why it's hard for me to let them go. But at this point, I do not know what to do of them anymore, beside just letting them sit here forever..... guess I'll have to make a decision. Give them to someone who might take care of them, or just keep them here as relics without ever doing anything new of them. 

might you consider those characters something along the lines of "retired"? they were still loved with attention put into them, but you've spent so much time with them that it's sorta exhausted all of your drive to plot and hc and whatnot for them? i don't think you'd need to give those characters away, especially if you're still attached somewhat, as they're still yours! it doesn't matter (imo) that they're not "actively" worked on, because you've already spent ten years with those characters and you don't need to kiss those 10 years away unless you don't want to.

answering the actual thread topic: yes, i do feel like some characters are like... i guess more of what you described: so much time and effort went into their stories that i don't really feel the drive to expand on them. but i don't really consider them "finished", in a sense? most of the time this happens with deep 'sona characters, as i like exploring their paths the most and they get a lot of art/writing/headcanoning done for them, and as i grow and change i sort of lose the vibe i retained, so they're shelved and replaced with different sonas who better match my needs in the moment.

but i don't think my old sonas are really finished? there are a lot of other stories i could write of them, relationships, drawings, etc. but i don't really want to work on them now (or possibly ever again)? i want to give them completed profiles at least so that they're nice and neat in my toyhouse, but actively writing for them seems out of the question. so i do sorta relate to what you're feeling. i just left them in my toyhouse - they're a part of me and were huge parts of my life, and i don't mind keeping them around out of nostalgia and appreciation for what they added to my life and relationships!

I've never been really sure of what "retired" might mean, but it might be this indeed. I've done everything I want to do with them and I don't feel doing more, but I still love them. Maybe I'll just keep them. They have no monetary value anyway then I can't even trade them for food. So, yeah, guess I'll just keep them even though I do nothing at all with them anymore. As a memory.

Thanks for your reply :D  

My characters are NEVER finished. My main oc, Nick, I have been developing for over a year. there is always room to improve, in my opinion. 

Yes, theres a point where some of my characters are more presentable than others, but like.... never really completed? you know what I mean? once I stop developing my characters they grow stale. :P

I could never consider a character "finished" in a totality sense. I have retired characters before, mainly ones made for specific roleplays, but I have never thought of a character of having their potential used up. Mikhail is my oldest surviving character, going on eight years now, and I still write with him constantly, and still update him every so often when a new idea comes.

Most of my characters who aren't from my current comic are what I'd consider finished (so this folder and sub-folders, but mostly this one and this one), in the sense that they're from a comic or something else that's finished, and there's not much else that can be done with them. I still love them, though, which is why they're on Toyhouse, and I still occasionally draw or commission art of some of them.

Everybody else is always a work in progress. :)

a lot of my characters are connected to plots and stories, and those stories are finished so in that sense the characters are "finished" as well but i never stop thinking about them so....

I consider a "finished" character to be one with whom I haven't dealt with in years. They've got enough art to be illustrative, the profile is well formatted and has all the parts and their story or roleplay is over. Bonus points if the character is so specific that you'd never find another roleplay to use them in without major revisions. Once a character gets some major development during a particular roleplay I tend to shelve them and move on once said storyarc is over because it's too difficult to start from square one with them again.

I never truly think of a character as finished. To me that is the same thing as retirement or death to the character itself. Be it discussions, roleplay, growth and development, or generaly collecting images or drawing my own... I always try and keep the "life line" going for the characters I connect with the most.