#if her role had been any bigger s6 would have gone very very differently

[actual-changeling]

Very good analysis!

Only thing I disagree with is Diana being more subtle compared to Phoebe—I'd argue she is more overt than Phoebe and a lot more aggressive.

Phoebe did her little mind games but it was limited to the case, and it was pretty clear from the beginning that she doesn't actually care about "getting him back" in any shape or form. She fucked with him for fun, Mulder realized it from the beginning (and so did Scully), and Phoebe disappeared back to England.

Diana, however, is so much more physical it actually makes me nauseous at times. Her constantly touching Mulder without asking for consent (e.g. s5, hospital scenes in the Amor Fati arc) forces him to either actively reject her or allow her to keep doing it. Since Mulder is too 'polite' to outright push her away, he lets her do whatever she wants.

The verbal aspect wouldn't work without the physical, it is a callback to whatever relationship they had years ago, and by probably even recreating those touches, she can lead him to wherever she wants him to be.

Forced intimacy is a classic abuse pattern, especially paired with the occasional betrayal that he automatically excuses. It crosses the last line in Amor Fati when she touches him while he's unable to move in a hospital bed. It's disgusting and violating, and Scully's gentle and respectful touch (only taking his hand) emphasizes the abusive behaviour Diana displays.

The actress did an amazing job eliciting those responses from the audience, I don't think there's a single person in this fandom that doesn't hate her guts.

great points on Diana. I can't quite figure out what I think about her narrative yet. I didn't like when she first appeared because she came across and part of a suspicious character, and her appeal was very unappealing. When Gibson is ready to disclose who Mulder is thinking about, oh boy does she want to know to stop up the pot. She's aggressive but in a frozen manner. What I mean by that is her facial expressions seem frozen, her voice is almost stilted, and her eyes lack the dance that we see in Scully' and Mulder's. I also don't know what to think about her because she didn't get a real conclusion. We are told that she is killed, but was she? Maybe she is just reassigned to do something else. I wanted to see the closure or some actual redemption of her alliance with CSM.

With that being said, when do you think Mulder figured out that Diana was lying to him and couldn't be trusted? Was it the night that he went to her apartment or when he was in his mind-reading, psychosis state? AND, do you think that during the Diana period, after work or on the weekends, Mulder and Diana had some flings or some sort of relationship?

Did Mulder choose Scully or did he get Scully by default because Diana was removed from the equation?

diana was soooo underutilized. i had vaguely heard of her before i reached her part of the story and i was expecting this big, huge, MSR-shattering deal, and then she was hardly ever on screen. i get that the actress wasn't available very often, but then don't try to make a love triangle if she's only going to be in five episodes and the rest of the time it's like she doesn't even exist.

frozen is a perfect word to describe her. she's just so insincere so much of the time. everything is a performance, tailored specifically to get mulder on her side. she's basically a more subtle version of phoebe imo; manipulative, but in a way that can slide under the radar if you're not looking for it (which mulder isn't; he wants to believe she wants the best for him).

i'm so annoyed that she was killed off-screen lmao. this show brought back jeffrey spender after we saw him get shot, brought back csm after he was literally blown up in a fiery explosion, but we don't even see diana die and she never comes back?? i'm suspicious...

(btw if you're looking for fics where she wasn't actually killed in amor fati, Gaslight by @sisterspooky1013 and Pause by @cecilysass are two of the best imo, and if you're looking for a redemption story/something that actually fleshes out her character a bit more, I recommend The Whole Truth by @admiralty-xfd and The Only Answer by me lmao)

as for when mulder finally figured out he couldn't trust her, he absolutely knew it when she went to see him in the hospital and he could read her mind. there's no way he doesn't know at that point. when he went to her apartment, he was at the very least open to the possibility that she had betrayed him. he wouldn't have gone in the first place if he really thought there couldn't be anything to it. but then csm shows up and somehow that doesn't raise a big red flag so i don't think he really got it then. it's not clear at the end of one son if mulder and the others believe that diana was among those killed at the air force base, and since she never appears or is mentioned between one son and biogenesis, we don't know at what point mulder finds out she somehow survived. depending on the circumstances of his finding out, it might have raised suspicions in his mind, which were then confirmed by the mind-reading.

my answer to the question of whether mulder and diana had any flings during this period is abso-fucking-lutely not, and not just because i personally can't stand the idea. the only time i can really see it happening is when she first shows up in the season 5 finale, but there's just no time for anything like that to happen during that episode. beyond that point, mulder starts off season 6 annoyed at diana for taking over the x-files behind his back, but then scully pulls the rug out from under him at the opr hearing after he pretty much made a fool of himself declaring confidently that she was about to prove the virus was alien, so he takes diana's side in that episode out of sheer petulance. after that he's too busy chasing "vicious, long-clawed spacelings" to be bothered to have any flings, but then at the end of the episode, scully finally comes through with evidence of alien dna in the human genome. it's too late to take back the way he embarrassed himself at the opr hearing, but it begins to put them back on the same page. and then during the period when they're off the x-files, mulder's digging through the trash in their old office to find x-files for him and scully to investigate instead of just asking diana to sneak some files out of the office for him, which i can't imagine him not doing if they're having any kind of relationship.

this whole season is about mulder and scully dancing around the idea of being together, which is something mulder wants but is afraid to express directly, not knowing that's precisely what scully needs to hear. i just can't see him choosing to be with diana except maybe for when he's still disoriented by her sudden reappearance, and there wasn't room in the timeline of the episode for that to happen.

@randomfoggytiger broke down the progression of mulder and scully's relationship during season 6 very well, and i have nothing to add except that yes, mulder chose scully, this whole season is about mulder choosing scully, learning to appreciate her and to express that appreciation the way she wants him to. diana really is irrelevant in the end.