Noelle

> "*Asian failed? Or actually failed?*"
> ― Noelle
>
>

**Noelle** is one of the four main characters in the visual novel *Butterfly Soup* and its sequel *Butterfly Soup 2*. During the events of both games, she is a freshman in high school and is a member of the Baseball Club.

## Appearance

Noelle is a girl of average height with long black hair tied in a single braid which lays over her left shoulder, dark eyes, and pale skin. She has a birthmark under her right eye, which is described as "a large splotch of pigment" and "bigger than your typical beauty mark."

She is only seen from the shoulders up as a child, but she seems to be wearing a white shirt with a yellow collar and two star-shaped hair clips. Her hair is styled in the same way as it is as a teenager.

In ninth grade, she wears a white button-up blouse with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, with a dark brown satchel bag slung over her left shoulder and across her chest. She also wears a navy blue flannel around her waist, light grey cuffed jeans, black socks, and brown Oxford shoes. When participating in club activities, she has on a black long sleeve turtleneck shirt, the team uniform, and the matching baseball cap.

Noelle is described to have good posture.

During *Butterfly Soup 2*, she dresses up as a news reporter for the group project she's doing with Diya and Akarsha. This outfit consists of a teal suit jacket that has a brown logo on the suit pocket positioned in front of her heart, a white button-up shirt, a red tie, dark grey pants, and a toy microphone to finish it all off. The microphone has a yellow button on its bright red cylindrical base, with an aqua green ring above the button and a blueish-teal windscreen. She also wears her hair down while in this costume.

## Personality

Noelle is an uptight, intelligent girl who is also socially awkward. She prefers to hide her feelings behind an aloof/grumpy exterior. Despite this, she cares very deeply about her friends, defending Akarsha after her mother accused the girl of sabotaging Noelle's education.

Noelle's aloof/socially awkward personality stems a lot from how her parents raised her. When she was younger, her mother pushed her really hard in her education, stating that "fun is an illusion" and to focus on her studies. Because of this, she doesn't really know how to let loose and gets flustered easily when someone like Akarsha comes by.

Noelle is very smart and dedicated. She is the top in her class and very studious, and often stays up late to finish all her schoolwork; this contributes to her weak immune system which is why she gets sick so often. Even though she had the flu in middle school, she still went to her classes. Noelle also plays the violin and piano. She isn't very strong, though; her mother didn't let her play sports.

Noelle often asks Diya to open her water bottles because she's too weak to do it herself. This is because her mother is too invested in her studies to let her participate in sports.

## Relationships

### Diya

Diya is Noelle's childhood best friend.

Noelle and Diya first met in kindergarten. One of their classmates brought in Krispy Kreme donuts, which Noelle thought of as distasteful and offered to Diya. Diya gladly accepted and since then, Noelle has earned Diya's undying loyalty.

The two remained friends throughout elementary and middle school and are still close friends. Noelle and Diya really care about each other and Noelle is extremely protective of Diya. Diya really looks up to Noelle.

### Akarsha

Despite Noelle's protests, Akarsha and her are most definitely friends.

Noelle secretly cares about Akarsha and finds her funny. On multiple occasions, Akarsha will make a dumb joke or act stupid and Noelle will have to restrain herself from not breaking character by laughing.

Noelle's favorite thing about Akarsha is her seemingly endless amount of excuses. While Noelle always tries to correct Akarsha's erratic behavior, she genuinely thinks of her as a friend, defending Akarsha when her mother accuses the other girl of trying to sabotage Noelle.

When they first met, Noelle’s personality led Akarsha to accuse her of being a robot. As well as Noelle being the teacher's pet and drawing attention to herself that way, this prompted Akarsha to prank Noelle by writing “boob” on a Post-It note every day and putting it somewhere Noelle would find it. Each time Noelle found one, she’d react the exact same way – she’d hiss “..What?!” to herself under her breath, fold the Post-It note diagonally twice into a small triangle, and throw it away. After doing this every day for a few weeks Akarsha went the extra mile and put the Post-It inside the book Noelle would be reading for the day after having to pay attention to the order the books were passed out in and count the number of desks to Noelle’s seat. Noelle was asked to read a passage aloud, flipped her book open, and saw it. This time she stared at it for a solid five seconds, stood up, held the Post-it up, and screamed “WHO IS DOING THIS????!!!” This was in the middle of class and much to the shock of Akarsha and her classmates. When the teacher asked Noelle to sit down and as she did, seething, she announced: “I KNOW YOU’RE WATCHING THIS, YOU IMMATURE CRETIN. I WILL FIND YOU, AND I WILL DESTROY YOU.“ Unknowingly, that was the moment Akarsha decided to be friends with her.

During Akarsha's outburst in the auditorium, Akarsha didn't realize it, but Noelle heard everything. Noelle kind of had a sense of what was up already, but actually hearing it worried her. She was debating whether or not to intervene when Min showed up.

The two eventually start dating and get married soon after Min and Diya's wedding. Akarsha asked Noelle out at GameStop, which Noelle accepted. The two work well together due to their extreme personalities balancing out.

### Min-seo

Noelle and Min-seo have a love–hate relationship, even if they both insist it's just hate–hate. They eventually become great friends.

With only knowledge from Diya that Min was nice enough to gift Diya a seaweed sheet, Noelle met Min with very little going into the meeting. Min immediately disliked Noelle upon meeting her. The reason for this is because Diya referred to Noelle as her best friend, to the great displeasure of Min. Min was jealous of Noelle because of how close she was to Diya. Noelle was also taller than both Min and Diya at the time, which to Min served as leverage against them.

After Noelle and Min meet again, they start off with their usual bitter attitudes towards each other. Eventually, they start to bond due
to their similar sucky childhood. They have many things in common, and while they would never admit it out loud, they do think of each other as friends. Min even realizes that had they acted nicer towards Noelle, they could have been friends sooner. Noelle followed this with shock, to which Min was quick to take it back. At the end of the day, they do, albeit begrudgingly, care about each other.

Despite Min and Akarsha almost ended up fist fighting again afterward, Noelle's opinion of Min slightly improved after hearing Min trying to cheer up Akarsha, unbeknownst to Min.

### Chryssa

Noelle and Chryssa are teammates.

Noelle secretly looks up to Chryssa and views her as a maternal figure, even so much as accidentally calling her mom to her face. Since Noelle doesn't have a close relationship with her actual mother, she sort of replaced her own mother with Chryssa instead.

They grow close over the course of the year and Noelle has to try really hard not to cry during Chryssa's graduation. They still keep in touch afterwards.

### Jun-seo

Noelle and Jun-seo have Diya and Min-seo as mutual friends.

Noelle has been acquaintances with him from elementary school but doesn't know him too well.

### Hayden

Noelle and Hayden have Diya and Min-seo as mutual friends.

Like Jun-seo, Noelle has been acquaintances with him from elementary school but doesn't know him too well.

### Noelle's Parents

Noelle is the daughter and only child of Noelle's parents.

Noelle is naturally interested in subjects relating to math and science, but due to the immense amount of pressure her parents place on her to excel, her curiosity has waned in favor of focusing on her grades.

Noelle's parents wouldn't approve of Noelle joining the Baseball Club.

## Quotes

### *Butterfly Soup IGF Video*

* "The game Butterfly Soup―"
	+ **Min:** "Sucks."
	+ "Sucks?!"
	+ **Min:** "You can't kill anyone!"
	+ "How about we kill YOU?! Stop interrupting me!"
* **Akarsha:** "We're left with no choice, then. Noelle, we gotta kiss."
	+ "NO."
	+ **Akarsha:** "Playing hard to get, are we?"
	+ "I'M NOT PLAYING HARD TO GET."
	+ **Akarsha:** "This is biphobia!"
	+ "How― What― HOW IS THIS BIPHOBIA??"
* "You know what?! Forget this! I give up. We're done! Turn off the camera, Diya."

### *Butterfly Soup*

* **Diya**:"How are you so weak? It's scary."
	+ "It's the manufacturer's fault for making these seals so strong."

* "Asian failed? Or actually failed?"

* "JUST BECAUSE MY NAME IS FRENCH DOESN'T MEAN I'M FRENCH."
* "Don't do that. I like being alive the same time as you."
	+ **Akarsha**: "That's the sweetest thing you've ever said to me!"
	+ "Really? Then I take it back."
	+ **Akarsha**: "WOW."

* **Akarsha**: "That's hella kawaii."
	+ "Never use that phrase ever again."
	+ **Akarsha**: "What phrase?"
	+ "You know what phrase."

* "Why is it so hot?"
	+ **Akarsha**: "Because I'm he—"
	+ "You shut up!"

* "We can also make the message a cipher. So she has to solve it."
	+ **Diya**: "If you put too much math on it, she'll know it's you."
	+ "Ciphers aren't math."
	+ **Diya**: "If you have to explain to me what it is, she'll know it's you."
	+ "Fair enough."

* "You! I can't believe you've done this! I ought to report you to the authorities."
	+ **Akarsha**: "But you won't."
	+ "What, you think I won't just because we're fr...f...fellow acquaintances?"
	+ **Akarsha:** "FELLOW ACQUAINTANCES??"
	+ **Diya:** "She was totally about to say "friends"."
	+ "I was not!"
	+ **Akarsha:** "Admit it! Friends! Friends! Friends!"
	+ "I hate you more than is physically possible right now!"

* **Akarsha:** "It's sad imagining Noelle all by herself on a little island in Taiwan."
	+ "What do you mean "all by herself"? It's not like I'd be completely alone without you two."
	+ **Diya:** "................"
	+ **Akarsha:** "................"
	+ "STOP LOOKING SKEPTICAL."

* "USE YOUR HEAD, YOU STUPID CLOWN!!!!!! IF YOU DIE I'LL KILL YOU!!!!!"
* "SHUT UP! SHUT UP!! SHUT UP!!!! THIS IS NOT SCIENTIFIC!!! HE CAN'T DO THAT! THAT'S NOT HOW NUCLEAR PHYSICS WORKS!! NO!!!! SHUT UP!!!!!"

* "I don't need praise for failing. I'm not stupid."
* "I want to push her off a cliff. ...But a shallow one, so she doesn't get hurt. Just to scare her.)"
* "(I haven't seen Diya this happy since the time the vending machine malfunctioned and gave her two Kit Kat bars instead of one.)"
* **Min-seo:** "There are things you can't see!"
	+ "Like what? Your feelings? The power of friendship? Does it not occur to you that perhaps your enemies have those things too? They're on both sides of the equation, so they cancel each other out."

* **Akarsha:** "Bro, give it up. Noelle hates being wrong."
	+ "Actually, I wouldn't know. I'm not familiar with the sensation."

* **Chryssa:** "It's not cheating. You guys deserve a freakin' Academy Award for that performance just now. Especially Noelle. Good job!"
	+ "Shut up. Don't praise me like I'm a little kid."
	+ **Chryssa:** "Are you crying?!"
	+ "Ib nob cryig!"

* "I can't comprehend a situation where you don't have to hide most of your life from your parents."
* "It's okay if you're not what your parents wanted you to be."

## Trivia

* Noelle is quite weak. She can't open a plastic water bottle on her own and takes 18 minutes to run the mile.
* Due to the rosin found in Noelle and Diya's shared locker, it is assumed that she can play at least one type of string instrument.
* Noelle hates bittermelon.
* Noelle's first kiss was with Diya, by accident, when they were under ten-years-old. Noelle still remembers it but Diya doesn't.
* Noelle joined the baseball club out of spite for her mother.
* Akarsha and Noelle end up together eventually. Due to their personalities, it takes them a painfully long time, though. Akarsha doesn’t expect Noelle to reciprocate her feelings, so she’s careful to always flirt with her in a way that can be construed as a joke. Noelle is incredibly uncomfortable with expressing cheesy sentiments; she was barely able to admit liking Min and Akarsha as friends, so it'd be a struggle for her to express that she’s romantically attracted to someone.
* Noelle was never really homophobic, it’s more that she was ignorant and hated Min. Whenever Min shows aggression toward her, such as during their first meeting or the scene in the locker room, Noelle reacts with bewilderment because she doesn’t understand Min’s motivations. After Akarsha calls Min Diya’s ex, and Noelle observes Diya and Min’s interactions from a more mature lens compared to when they were third graders, she starts to see it in a different light. Noelle 100% looked up “homosexuality” on Wikipedia trying to understand. She gradually gets used to Min just from proximity, and her bonding with Min over their parents was supposed to be the turning point where she decides Min isn’t that bad.
* Everyone in the baseball club chips in each year on Noelle's Valentine gram prank for Akarsha.
* Noelle has seen some basic anime like *Pokémon*, *Digimon*, and *Yu-Gi-Oh!*
* Noelle lets Diya and Min sleep at her apartment after Diya and Min lose theirs to a fire. Noelle and Akarsha aren’t living together at the time, and Noelle has the nicer and cleaner apartment.
* Noelle’s passion is math and science, so she ends up doing something in STEM that she likes, just not what her parents were expecting.
* Noelle was originally a supporting character before Brianna decided that her personality was too strong, and made her one of the four main characters instead.
* According to Diya's logic, Noelle reminded her of a snake because, like a snake, Noelle is cold-blooded and often insincere. Diya is also a Harry Potter fan, and Noelle would be a Slytherin.
* Noelle's favorite movie is probably a particularly educational documentary.
* Noelle's position on the Baseball Club is the right fielder. Chryssa and Liz put her there in hopes that since most people are right-handed, few will hit the ball out there – so if all goes well, her lack of skill is hidden and she’s just standing there doing nothing for most of the game.
* Brianna confidently confirmed that Noelle's MBTI personality type is ISTJ.
* At Diya and Min's wedding, Noelle won’t leave the table to dance, and Akarsha keeps singling her out and using the venue’s lights to shine a spotlight on her. In fact, she keeps flashing the lights above Noelle the entire night to annoy her. Akarsha gets a hold of a green light and points it at Noelle so only Noelle is green as she’s eating, for no reason.
	+ Noelle made a really objective and clinical PowerPoint with the key moments in bullet points and made note of things most people wouldn’t include, such as Min’s major mistakes.
	+ Finally, on the last slide Noelle goes “But overall, I suppose Diya could’ve done worse."
* Noelle does really well on tests. Her average is described as an A+++.
* Noelle is a teacher’s pet who always raises her hand to answer questions, wrecks the curve every exam, etc. so she draws attention to herself without trying to.
* Noelle can speak Mandarin from being forced to attend Chinese school every Saturday for several years. The writing system infuriates her because it’s so inefficient.
* When sick, Noelle recognizes it, takes cold medication, but then tries to power through school until she physically can’t. She normally wears a surgical mask to prevent contaminating others, but Brianna couldn’t put it in the game because blocking the lower half of her face made her look less expressive.
* Noelle doesn't know that she's lesbian yet, because she still thinks she's straight by default.
* Noelle is an atheist.
* Noelle eats healthy but is somewhat picky because she’s used to Diya eating whatever she doesn’t want. She likes to think she has sophisticated taste, but everyone else thinks her taste is bland. She doesn’t like overly sugary foods and junk food and has a low tolerance for spicy food. She has a soft spot for oyster omelettes.
* Noelle and Diya watch Min and Akarsha dare each other to eat ghost peppers and go through an experience, questioning why they're in love with these people.
* In Dungeons & Dragons, Noelle would be a Wizard, since she definitely can’t do anything reliant on physical strength. She would be a jerk and attempt things like building a Clone Army.
* Noelle is ticklish.
* During a conversation with Akarsha, Noelle noticed Akarsha reading some yaoi so it came up in conversation. Since Noelle had never heard of it, Akarsha gleefully educated her, to Noelle’s horror. Noelle was extremely scandalized that Akarsha kept sending her inappropriate images, and Akarsha was like “i’m doing this out of the kindness of my heart! it’s for ur education!! me: Master Teacher. call me sensei”.
* Noelle has never tried smoking weed.
* Noelle's never played a first-person shooter before, but before she begins to play *Overwatch*, she studies many strategy guides and videos to prepare beforehand. Following her research, Noelle chooses Symmetra after memorizing the optimal turret and teleporter/shield matrix placements for each map. Symmetra is a good hero for inexperienced players because she doesn’t require aiming skills, but secretly, Noelle likes her because she is focused and serious. She’s scandalized by her default outfit but can’t afford to get the Vishkar/Architect skins.
	+ During a game, whenever someone's character gets killed or mortally wounded, Noelle would switch to Mercy. Min would blame her for “not healing fast enough”. Eventually, infuriated, Noelle just screams into the voice chat “FINE! DIE ALONE, YOU FOOLS!!!!” and lets her teammates at critical health perish at her feet the match ends in defeat. Noelle then asks, "Akarsha, what were you doing this last match?" Akarsha replied with "Turned invisible" before Noelle followed it up with "YOU’RE NOT ACCOMPLISHING ANYTHING WHILE INVISIBLE". Akarsha then states that "There should be a card for “time spent invisible”.
* Noelle will play Mario Kart at other people’s houses but doesn't regularly play games.
* Noelle gets serenaded by Akarsha with the song Teenage Dirtbag because the song lyrics say “Her name is Noelle”. Likewise, whenever Christmas songs say “Noel”, Akarsha annoyingly points it out like “it’s you Noelle”, assumingly annoying Noelle.
* Noelle has a Chinese name.
* For Halloween, the others finally convince Noelle to go trick-or-treating for the first time.
	+ Noelle is boring so she dresses up as a doctor. She basically looks the same as normal except wearing a lab coat.
	+ A few times, Akarsha runs ahead of the gang and jumps out at them from behind bushes. Noelle reacts with a scream.
	+ Noelle didn’t want most of her candy so Diya got it.
* When watching a horror movie, Noelle constantly points out unrealistic things about the film, half to convince herself that she’s not scared by a completely fake, fictional story (she is). Her and Akarsha are the only ones that scream.
* When going to college, Noelle goes to a college relatively close by, like an hour away from Diya and Min, who live together. They occasionally visit each other.
* The main quartet's name together spells D.A.M.N. in the order of Diya, Akarsha, Min-seo, and Noelle.
* When it comes to taste in music, Noelle is extremely boring and isn’t really into anything popular. She listens to classical music, sometimes instrumental math rock/post rock (like All I Understand Is That I Don’t Understand by toe) if she’s feeling REALLY daring.
* Noelle is an honor roll student with a 4.0 GPA and 2390 on the SAT, which, naturally, she’ll replace with 2400 on her second try.

## Gallery

Noelle's Chatroom IconNoelle's CardReference SheetNoelle AnnoyedNoelle AwayNoelle Big SmileNoelle FacepalmNoelle HappyNoelle HmNoelle NeutralNoelle ShockedNoelle SurprisedNoelle TsunNoelle UhNoelle WorriedNoelle Worried AwayBaseball Noelle AnnoyedBaseball Noelle AwayBaseball Noelle Big SmileBaseball Noelle FacepalmBaseball Noelle HappyBaseball Noelle HmBaseball Noelle NeutralBaseball Noelle ShockedBaseball Noelle SurprisedBaseball Noelle TsunBaseball Noelle UhBaseball Noelle WorriedBaseball Noelle Worried AwayYoung Noelle AnnoyedYoung Noelle AwayYoung Noelle Big SmileYoung Noelle HappyYoung Noelle NeutralYoung Noelle ShockedYoung Noelle SurprisedYoung Noelle TsunYoung Noelle UhYoung Noelle WorriedYoung Noelle Worried AwayOutdated Heights Concept Art
## References

1. ↑ https://brianna-lei.tumblr.com/post/167063187464/butterfly-soup-asks-17
2. ↑ https://brianna-lei.tumblr.com/post/166240505359/butterfly-soup-asks-13
3. ↑ https://brianna-lei.tumblr.com/post/165821767019/butterfly-soup-asks-batch-8
4. ↑ https://brianna-lei.tumblr.com/post/168404468849/butterfly-soup-asks-19
5. ↑ https://brianna-lei.tumblr.com/post/165753625584/anonymous-butterfly-soup-asks-batch-6
6. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/ButterflySoup/comments/lsz76n/bs\_wiki\_information\_sources/gov7u3d?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
7. ↑ https://brianna-lei.tumblr.com/post/165530365724/anonymous-butterfly-soup-asks-batch-2
8. ↑ https://brianna-lei.tumblr.com/post/165575212264/anonymous-butterfly-soup-asks-batch-3
9. ↑ https://brianna-lei.tumblr.com/post/165643187249/anonymous-butterfly-soup-asks-batch-5
10. ↑ https://brianna-lei.tumblr.com/post/165771377569/anonymous-butterfly-soup-asks-batch-7
11. ↑ https://brianna-lei.tumblr.com/post/165996723949/butterfly-soup-asks-batch-10
12. ↑ https://brianna-lei.tumblr.com/post/166099484839/butterfly-soup-asks-11
13. ↑ https://brianna-lei.tumblr.com/post/166166079834/butterfly-soup-asks-12
14. ↑ https://brianna-lei.tumblr.com/post/166346368104/butterfly-soup-asks-14
15. ↑ https://brianna-lei.tumblr.com/post/166487755089/butterfly-soup-asks-15
16. ↑ https://brianna-lei.tumblr.com/post/166727493239/butterfly-soup-asks-16
17. ↑ https://brianna-lei.tumblr.com/post/167577525429/butterfly-soup-asks-18
18. ↑ https://brianna-lei.tumblr.com/post/169291192839/butterfly-soup-asks-20
19. ↑ https://followedbymercy.tumblr.com/post/168704709603/van-we-have-awkward-noelle-being-jealous-when-she