YMMV / The Fallout

• Designated Villain: It's easy to view Nick as annoying, opportunistic or even unsympathetic, mainly for the way he treats Vada and seems to get into Fame Whore territory. Some have even accused him of being an intentionally irritating Take That!/surrogate of David Hogg (who became a gun control activist after being a survivor of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting). But he was just as much a survivor of the shooting as Vada was, even though he wasn't in the same place. When he speaks of the experience he's clearly very traumatized, and he's channeled that trauma in a different way.
• Nightmare Fuel: Everything about the shooting is understandably horrifying, from the way the gun shots sound to Vada and Mia being unable to do anything but hide and desperately hope they won't be discovered and Quinton trying to hide while still covered in his own brother's blood. The fact that it all takes place off screen just makes it even worse.
• She Really Can Act: Most reactions toward both Jenna Ortega, who was mainly known as a Disney star (although also took a dramatic turn in Scream (2022)) and Maddie Ziegler, who was best known for appearing in Sia music videos, her role in the controversial reality show Dance Moms, and acting in terribly received movies like The Book of Henry and Music.
• Squick: The pen exploding in Vada's mouth.
• The Woobie:
  • In pretty much every scene you just want to hug poor Vada, who is very clearly carrying the trauma from the shooting with her all throughout the movie.
  • Ditto for Quinton, who is not only traumatized from the shooting itself but from also seeing his brother shot to death right in front of him.
  • Mia is this as well, not to mention she's already a Lonely Rich Kid without the Good Parents that Vada has – although the way she expresses her grief makes her more of a Stoic Woobie.
  • Nick is clearly also very traumatized from the events as he shakes when he speaks about the shooting. He can be read as a bit of a Jerkass Woobie in the way he responds to Vada, but it's clear that he still has a huge heart.
  • Amelia is a bit of a mix of woobie and Jerkass Woobie, although she's only as much of a jerkass as an 11-year-old can be. She's annoying and highly insensitive to Vada following the shooting and doesn't have much of a sense of boundaries and in the aftermath seems to make the shooting about her ("I'm literally gonna Amazon a bulletproof backpack"), but we later see that she's trying hard to find the words to tell Vada she feels responsible for her being in the bathroom.