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(a link to the junoverse designs for anyone who wants to follow along)

for starter’s, the way peter is drawn feels a bit like a caricature, to the point of drawing on transmisogynistic stereotypes. (stereotypes that are like, ten times more visible in their art of vespa, who is actually trans fem which i’ll get to in a second) the intersection of what it means to be a feminine gnc person and being a poc are many and varied, and there is definitely a lot to say about femininity being seen as wrong and shameful. there's a lot of history in how Asian men's femininity has been portrayed and sexualised, both in fandom & in the world at large, and sometimes white authors just aren’t capable of handling those points with care. as much as i would love to celebrate a gnc character design,  i think it's safe to say that this artist's depiction of a hyper-feminine nureyev feels like a mockery rather than honest representation

also, it may not be intentional, but when you have a line-up & you're drawing the lighter characters (or at least nureyev and buddy) much more sultry & sexual than the darker ones.... that tells me something about how you view people of color. especially when the sexual way you draw those lighter characters has nothing to do with their character

a line up like this is supposed to give you an indication of character personality. this is supposed to be how you're going to present them to the world. both buddy and peter use their charisma to their advantage sometimes, but that charisma is based on their personality! though he's absolutely flirted to get what he wants, peter tries to give off the vibes of a suave gentleman. if he’s wearing a tie, it’s not going to be haphazardly put on, because he cares about his appearance. peter can be sexual, but it’s not really the way he presents himself to the world at large, and this version of him goes so far it feels like some kind of parody of ouran host club or something, which makes me feel like it’s mocking him rather than trying to honestly portray his character. 

buddy meanwhile has never flirted with anyone but her wife and gets her way with confidence & force. that exaggerated body type would already be a bad look on its own because of the hypersexual way people view women of color, but with added context, it kind of feels like there's the implication that the only way these characters could be as cool & charismatic as they are is if they get their way with sex, which is just... incredibly racist

some of it is just an issue with the art style in general. a lot of cartoonish styles have exaggerated features, but there's a limit to how much you can exaggerate those features without just drawing actual stereotypes. alessandra's design makes me uncomfortable for the exact opposite reason as buddy's: cartoonishly gigantic muscles aren't really a great sight when black women are constantly seen as hypermasculine. i might be a bit too critical on this one? i feel like it was worse when i first looked at it, but there's still the fact that exaggerating an asian character's eyelids is racist. it's like. racism 101. both people and quanyi have incredibly slitted eyes in the majority of their art & personally the way quanyi specifically is exaggerated makes her seem more…. manic, somehow? the way her eyes are lidded aren’t only racist, but make it seem like she’s constantly giving everyone bedroom eyes which is just. Oof

vespa i wanted to talk about in more detail, because there is literally not one element of this design that doesn’t scream bigotry. It reminds me so much of every terrible caricature of a trans woman i’ve seen in horror. The wild bloodshot eyes, the bloody nose, the dagger, the unkept hair & hairy armpits, the wardrobe malfunction revealing a bare chest for no other reason than shock value alone—because how else are we supposed to know what kind of woman she is? There’s already been so many films & just, media in general linking trans women to mental illness and violence. We absolutely didn’t need a vespa design that looks like she belongs in silence of the lambs. If this was just vespa holding a knife, that’d be fine! She does, canonically, have a knife that she uses. But everything about this vespa is designed to look as offputting as possible. She doesn’t look dangerous because she’s part of our cool crime family, she looks out of control. Which is exactly how vespa worries the world will see her! Taking a character who says, pretty up front that she wants to be seen as more than her violent urges & mental illness and then drawing her in a way that screams “look out! This person is dangerous and mentally ill!” is honestly unforgivable. Add that to the fact that everything about her appearance implies she’s doing womanhood “wrong” (obviously, not shaving should be considered a neutral thing, but when it’s only a trans woman character you show with hair, it’s worth considering why you feel the need to do something like that) including the fact she’s going around with her shirt slipped like that, which looks obviously oversized to fill a chest she doesn’t have. One of the first things i learned about writing trans characters is that you should never reveal a character is trans by taking a moment to emphasize how different their body looks from a cis person, be it through having someone else walk in on them in the shower or this. It’s voyeuristic and serves no purpose but to make someone’s gender seem like a dramatic twist instead of an identity that deserves respect, and if a trans artist can’t even understand that, then there’s no hope of them accurately representing literally anyone else.

according to a friend, this art had been drawn before vespa was confirmed as trans (but reposted after, so clearly they didn’t see an issue either way) but that just means they saw an angry, schizophrenic woman & decided to not just make her a harmful stereotype of a pyschotic person, but add insult to injury by making her trans as well.

This has gone on too long & i can’t type anymore, but i wanted to say the second citadel designs really aren’t any better. Every character they chose to make a poc implies something negative, such as making marc and tal the only knights of color & then placing them as nothing more than comic relief. Maybe i could believe this was part of an effort to show the white characters as part of the oppressive class if it wasn’t for didn’t seem clear that we’re supposed to see the brothers as a pair of bumbling fools. Not to mention every single other bad thing they did