Gentoo Without systemd

Having trouble with being pulled in your emerges for no apparent reason ?

Why is systemd pulled in ?
Most packages depending on systemd actually depend on systemd or X or Y. If you have none of those, emerge tries to install the first in the list: systemd This is perfectly normal behavior, emerge cannot magically guess that you would prefer X or Y

systemd USE flag
Add "-systemd" to your USE in.

Mask systemd and udev
Don't worry about masking udev, it will automatically be replaced by : the systemd-free fork of udev

Troubleshooting
Some packages do need systemd or udev specifically, masking systemd and udev will then prevent you from installing or upgrading these packages