Here's another way to see that it has something to do with Pango: Install freetype2-demos. Use ftstring to display a string like "VeTeAy" with DejaVu. ftstring uses Freetype directly, without going through Pango, so it looks fine.
Here's another way to see that it has something to do with Pango: Install freetype2-demos. Use ftstring to display a string like "VeTeAy" with DejaVu. ftstring uses Freetype directly, without going through Pango, so it looks fine.