For a while I've had freetype blocked in packages.provided because one
update at one point messed up every single danged font on every application.
Recently I found out that when it was stopping emerges:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
WARNING: A requested package will not be merged because it is listed in
package.provided:

media-libs/freetype pulled in by 'world'

This problem can be solved in one of the following ways:

A) Use emaint to clean offending packages from world (if not installed).
B) Uninstall offending packages (cleans them from world).
C) Remove offending entries from package.provided.

The best course of action depends on the reason that an offending
package.provided entry exists.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

it was leaving several updates undone. I found out quite by accident, for
example, that updates for ksvg kdvi kdelibs kcontrol librsvg and imlib2
were available and not implemented. So I commented out the line in
packages.provided that stifled freetype and ran emerge -auD world, and
got this:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Calculating world dependencies |
!!! Multiple versions within a single package slot have been
!!! pulled into the dependency graph:

media-libs/freetype:2

('installed', '/', 'media-libs/freetype-2.3.3', 'nomerge') pulled in by
('installed', '/', 'kde-base/ksvg-3.5.8', 'nomerge')

('ebuild', '/', 'media-libs/freetype-2.1.10-r3', 'merge') pulled in by
('installed', '/', 'gnome-base/libgnomeprint-2.18.3', 'nomerge')
('installed', '/', 'media-gfx/imagemagick-6.3.7.9', 'nomerge')
('installed', '/', 'x11-libs/qt-4.3.2-r1', 'nomerge')
(and 24 more)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm lost now.

--
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