nudges gently at a character building question: in the markus is dead verse, does he remove the photos of markus because of the moving on? or the grief? I am curious

The grief, definitely. That's their home and Connor would not want to move out of it for at least .... a couple of years after Markus' death (I think he'd move back in with Hank, eventually; he likes to have company, does better with a home that isn't empty) but having photographs of them together up around the place? Why would he do that to himself? He would not get rid of the photos (and he'd leave the cupboard with stickynotes untouched, sometimes leave it open so he can see them at a distance. Sidenote, at least once, he's added an 'i love you' stickynote to that cupboard door, in the After) -- would not get rid of the photos but he would have them somewhere in a particular place where he could look at them when he wanted to look at them.

Does it hurt to see photos of Markus? Hm, maybe. I think actually part of the reason would be that there are photos of Markus semiregularly in the news, even still, and they are photos of 'Markus The Leader Of The Rebellion' who is, yes, part of who Markus is and was, but also they're not Markus (Home), and I think Connor would like to have photographs of Markus that still feel 'new' or fresh or. Things that don't feel like permanent fixtures which can be overlooked or background-noised. It's not like he doesn't have access to photos at all times anyway. But the physical copies - especially that photo of Markus in the sunlight on their balcony, facing Connor, threatening to tip right over the edge because he's chronically perched in places, smiling at being caught on film - the physical copies are nice to keep as keepsakes. There's something tangible about photo albums rather than framed pictures on a wall anyway.

He misses him often and misses him more with these snippets of Markus who is real and laughing, shining out at him from a photo. I am not sure Connor's reasoning would be as explicit as everything above - he has handed me these as all good reasons for what he did (taking the photos down, putting them away) and I agree these are probably several of the reasons, but none of them were what made him do it. He arrived home one day and photos of Markus were everywhere and he thought, I want to take those down, and he did. the 'why' sort of came later, and probably is genuinely the 'why', but the knowledge was he wanted to take them down and so he did. connor has always known grief, and knows it well enough to not question when 'i want' is there. in grief, 'i want' is a gift.