i think what was really interesting about the book was how, by pointing out all that stuff about cultural appropriation, Scott kinda called himself out on things that he himself was doing. like, Scott's a white guy, and as far as I know he has no actual experiance with Hindu culture, but he wrote a character who is Hindu and who practices Hindu customs AND a story based on Hindu mythology. it's interesting that by exploring Darcy's conflict he may also be reflecting thoughts that he's had about his own work
and in the book, this issue is never really given a straightforward answer. It seems that Scott just wanted to point out that doing something like he (and more then one character in the book) did is Kinda Risky, and that even without intending to it could easily slip sideways and turn into something really bad. cultural appropriation doesn't have to be intentionally offensive, but it could come off that way if you're not careful, and more then once in the story the characters wonder if they were actually careful enough. so it seems to be less about the issue of whether culural appropriation took place in Afterworlds, and more a giant novel length PSA on how cutural themes should be handled
tldr; it's complicated, personally I don't think cultural appropriation occured, but it could easily have happened in this situation, and that's kinda the point
sorry for the word barf i just have a lot of Thoughts
