So, did you know there's a fan gameline about mad scientists? Yep, sure is. It's called Genius: the Transgression and Karkat here is a recovering Beholden. What's a Beholden, you ask? They're basically the Genius equivalent of Ghouls. You see, Karkat's just-out-of-college high school science teacher, Mr DuMedd, ended up having a Breakthrough and after witnessing Mr DuMedd's first Wonder, Karkat was kind of Beheld. Luckily (maybe?) sons of Demons are pretty resilient, so once Nemo pulled Karkat out of the high school and sent him to stay with Murai and the Veiled Creche things got better for him, but yeah. That was a thing for a while. He still misses it sometimes.