In the beginning of The Table DC had a very typical fed attitude. He was tough, level-headed, and could easily shut down nonesense

And as the series went on DC kind of changed; he came more willingly to be softer and gentler and went along with the chaos sometimes

I do believe like I previously headcanoned he was just trying to be what his father wanted. And that Orange beat him down so bad he couldn't control the states B U T

Since I will now die with non-binary!DC maybe it was also a combo of trying to present masculine vs letting go of what he thought "masculine" was.