#Chris Niosi

[b1adie]

Regarding Moze’s ENG va, Chris Niosi

you may have heard people discussing how hiring him was a fucked up choice. if you don’t know why, here’s a summarized explanation with sources

this is just a screenshot from wikipedia, but here’s a web archive of his tumblr blog from that date, since the original posts have been deleted

here is a post from a previous girlfriend of his, here’s a post from a former friend, and another very long post with a few former friends talking about their experiences with him.

i really recommend looking at the posts yourself, but here are some important excerpts.

this is the beginning of his own (now deleted) post (it can still be accessed through reblogs if you cant get the web archive to work, here’s one)

these are from his ex girlfriend, in the post which i linked above (this one)

and, here is a tweet from today (July 18th 2024) from an ex friend who says he has NOT changed at all, nor was the worst of the abuse ever made public.

please reblog for exposure and look into sending feedback to hyv if you do NOT want to play a game that has someone like this cast in it.

hsr email is hsrcs_en@hoyoverse.com, hyv’s is support_os@hoyoverse.com.

edit: good update! chris stepped down.

[naoreco]

I figure it’s worth putting on the Tumblr radar since much of this is current discussion of Niosi is happening on Twitter.

(content warnings for sexual assault, abuse, manipulation, and otherwise taking advantage of people)

On Chris Niosi, and Kyle McCarley’s defense of him:

Recently Chris Niosi (aka Kirbopher), who has admitted to abusing people around him for at least a decade, was cast in Honkai Star Rail as the character Moze. Five years have passed since his public apology, where he addresses some specific callouts from victims to debatable effect, but unfortunately he’s lied about apologizing to all of his victims (1, 2), and the specific apologies he has written are now deleted from his tumblr, calling his efforts into changing for the better into his question. Furthermore, as he has a history of taking advantage of his fans even in his more underground days (1+2, 3), putting him in a situation where he has access to more fans to put him on a pedestal is dangerous. Other users have iterated much of this already on tumblr, where it was already discussed in previous years, so this is just some context.

But I’m here to talk about something related that hasn’t gotten any Tumblr coverage. For example, people here have talked about Griffin Puatu’s reddit post defending him already. But nobody has mentioned Kyle McCarley defending him yet.

On July 19, 2024, in the replies of Moze’s introduction tweet, he had this to say:

He addresses his use of “bad boyfriend” downplaying legitimate abuse later. I don't think it's great but we’ll get to that. However, “the court of public opinion” is a concept that he does stand by, perhaps reinforced by the backlash he received for this. Some of this was vitriolic, given the kind of person he was defending from further criticism, but others did try to reason with him, including some of the above and more as evidence that Niosi isn’t being entirely truthful about his atonement, and overall most responses expressed disbelief and disappointment more than anything else.

Still, he deactivated his account the following day, on July 20, 2024.

Unfortunately, our story doesn’t end there. In the early morning of July 21, 2024, he made an announcement in his Discord server.

So here's the thing about Niosi not being a confirmed sexual abuser or rapist or pedophile. I don't have everything, with this being such an expansive case so this is off what I've found. You know the time he planned to take advantage of his girlfriend at the time while said girlfriend was intoxicated (plus this follow-up where he attempted to cover for himself)? Drunk people cannot consent, especially not when drunk sex is already a hard boundary. Although this technically doesn't make him a rapist, to my knowledge, if you're gonna argue semantics it'll just sound like "well he didn't ACTUALLY rape someone so it's not as bad". Is it not already terrible that he tried to and still downplayed it when called on it? Besides, as mentioned in Lighty's testimony linked above, he's let other in his sphere groom minors under his watchful eye, and his other ex Audrey had things to say about how he weaponized sexual favors too. If someone actually has more on a history of sexual abuse and pedophilia, though, please bring it to my attention. I'll add it to this post.

Either way, we don't know what he knows. At best, Kyle has a very incomplete picture of the situation, and at worst he does have a complete picture and he just doesn’t think it’s valid or up-to-date criticism. The person who first brought this to people's attention on Twitter also mentioned that her messages in the server were being deleted when she spoke up to provide evidence, so for someone who welcomes others to share evidence how open he actually is to it is questionable. (UPDATE: There's more to this part of the story but we'll get to it in a future update.) His final message a couple of hours from these just solidifies it.

Having joined the server myself to see, around the time of the announcements seems to have been scrubbed clean, but there is some current discussion of the topic as of this post. Furthermore, someone there has stated that they're compiling sources to send his way to give him a better understanding of the situation (even if they're not sure if he still wants to talk about this), so maybe this will finally get him to reconsider his stance! Only time will tell.

Overall, though, I stand by my point that if Niosi makes a living, it should be somewhere far away from the public eye. Don't give him a platform to find new fans to take advantage of. Don't give his victims the opportunity to be retraumatized whenever they start a new game of show. He's been given more than enough chances. It's time to turn over a new leaf instead of digging his heels into the ground.

Still, I don't know if Kyle will change his mind at this point. I want him to - I tried, back when his Twitter was still up - but even at this stage he's doubled down on a situation he knows he might not have the full story on and I'm not sure if I can trust that. For any other fans, give this some thought - keep an eye out for any future developments if you still want to have faith in him, move on from him if you can't stand it. I just want him to at least hold his friend accountable instead of trying to shield him from the lasting consequences of his own actions.

(I'll be linking future updates here: #1, #2 and #3 for now.)

[thowawayuntilfurthernotice]

If you see any of Niosi's VA friends claiming that he's changed for the better because he supposedly went to therapy, know that they're full of shit.

None of his victims have forgiven him and the only reason he's still getting any work is because of his industry connections.

Also, if you're wondering how he managed to get cast in a major franchise despite the fact that he broke NDA back in 2019, it's because MiHoYo games are non union.

So yes, while he didn't get paid the standard union rate for this project, he's still being given a massive platform.

Please don't stay silent about this, let MiHoYo know that they've made a big mistake by hiring this piece of shit. And even if they don't recast him, let every con that is willing to invite him as a guest know that you don't want him there.

[shoezuki]

took screenshots of sunday's VA Griffin Puatu's post before it gets deleted feel free to share

[sweetjazzygirl]

Tw// s/a

Y'all be like "support the victims!" until the abuser admitted to s/a them years ago and managed to get away with it with no justice received just because he "apologized" and "is trying to change for the better" when the victims stated that he did not reach out to them.

Y'all are, i swear, a bunch of liars. The amount of people i have seen not taking it seriously just because.

1. It's just "twitter being twitter", even though he admitted to his crimes.

2. He "apologized" and "trying to change for the better".

3. The other VAs are cool with having him around, even though there is a chance he may have fooled them into believing he's a good guy or because the VAs don't give a shit because "it's in the past".

His apology is probably him trying to save his image, he's not remorseful if he didn't reach for the victims and y'all have NO RIGHT to forgive him, even if you're religious. You're not the victims, the only ones who has the right to forgive him are his victims which they had confirmed that they're not forgiving him.

Imagine being in the victim's shoes, imagine watching your abuser who didn't get jail time suddenly became a celebrity or a famous person and no one around you believes that they're a horrible person or not believes that they'd continue their behavior just because "they changed" when your abuser didn't try hard enough to apology and to make matters worse, the justice system fails you despite the fact your abuser has admitted to it. Imagine you even finally get your word out and you see a bunch of people taking your abuser's side and not you? because they believed they'd "change" and that "you're just ruining their life"? because they believed that you're just creating another "cancel culture"?

Plus, cancel culture is supposed to be used for when someone gets cancelled over a simple mistake or making some stupid harmless jokes, cancel culture shouldn't be a term to be used when calling out an ACTUAL CRIMINAL that got away with sexually abusing people around them.

If i were to find out i hired a criminal that not only abused but SEXUALLY abused their victims, let alone 🍇 them and the victims let's me know that they're not forgiving them and the criminal tries to convince me that they had changed, i won't hesitate to fire them.

Your actions has consequences, it's not considered a "mistake", mistake is when you accidentally break a glass or something like that, not taking advantage of someone's mental health and body by abusing them to the point you leave a deep wound that is impossible to heal.

I'm disappointed in all of you, even disappointed in some of the VAs that decided to take his side.

[kirbopher]

Help us get 200 pre-orders for a KIRBOPHER PLUSHIE from the folks at Makeship! Pick one up and spread the word! TOME (Terrain of Magical Expertise) fans deserve new merch and I've always wanted to be turned into a marketable plushie for nefarious purposes :3c

[ellie-ramune]

BREAKING NEWS: Abusers can lie sometimes

[pyrosex]

Men rarely ever hold other men accountable

[lintwriting]

The mob psycho fandom: wow I can’t believe Reigen was voiced by an abusive creep.

Genshin impact fandom: VAs deserve a living and we should give him a chance, it’s his victims’ fault that they haven’t forgiven him or that they think his apologies sucked, but I know the guy, and he was never rude to me as his coworker, so surely he must be nice behind closed doors now. They’re just being unforgiving sticks in the mud. If you personally don’t want to support him, you’re stepping over victims and making it about yourself, even if the victims don’t seem to want to forgive or support him, either. Restorative Justice is when we give a creep voice acting roles in the “we make voice actors into celebrities” fandom, so you’re unjustly punishing him and making him go homeless by not supporting his new role in the “we make voice actors into celebrities” fandom. After all, how do you expect a VA to survive unless they become a good celebrity VA like me. I’m clearly someone who uses my new platform for good causes, so it’s always good to give a huge platform to VAs via the “we make voice actors into celebrities” fandom.

[stupidheadwisp]

WAR IS OVER!!! CHRIS IS GONE

[maybeamiles]

Okay so something happened in the Honkai Star Rail community that really bothered me and I'm trying to put into words what makes me so upset about it.

So Hoyoverse recently hired a new voice actor named Chris Niosi to voice one of their new characters. He is no longer voicing this character. The reason he is no longer voicing this character is because a bunch of people found out that in 2019 Niosi released a shitty internet apology for being abusive to people in his personal life in response to callout posts on Twitter and Tumblr. During this time he also violated an NDA about a role he played in Fire Emblem 3 Houses, and was replaced with Zach Aguilar. He did not face any criminal charges for this behavior, but it is a thing that happened. Naturally people are upset about this and kept asking for him to be fired, and some VA's stood up for him claiming he'd changed, and fans began to lash out against them too. Niosi ended up resigning, and Hoyoverse will hire a new voice actor.

So far, it seems this controversy has not affected his work. Since 2019 he's played Reigen Arataka in Season 3 of Mob Psycho 100 and was an NPC in Genshin Impact.

Now I have a few problems with the community reaction to all this:

Problem number 1: I spent way too much time in the Dream SMP fandom, and have heard way too much bullshit about people being abusers in their personal lives to be ok with any of this. Like part of the reason Dream SMP was so awful is that every other week there would be a new post along the lines of "Dream is the Worst! Here are 7 Heavily Censored Screenshots To Prove Why!" This stuff instantly activates my "I don't like this" senses, I have a very bad reaction to these things.

Problem Number 2: He's a fucking actor. Just because he now has a bit of fame in the community doesn't mean he's somehow more worthy of criticism than he was before. Hell, he still has work in the industry. Just go look up his IMDB. The only reason it matters more in Star Rail is because a lot of the Hoyoverse VA's make extra money off of being Hoyoverse VA's, like how Dan Heng's VA gets the other Star Rail VA's together to do music covers. Even then, he's WORKED WITH HOYOVERSE BEFORE. THE ONLY DIFFERENCE IS THAT HE'S NOW VOICING A PLAYABLE CHARACTER INSTEAD OF AN NPC.

Problem number 3: Personally, I don't see what online abuse allegations from 2019 have to do with his role as a Voice Actor. Would working at McDonald's or in a less flashy job stop him from hurting people? No! Now, if I was hiring him, I would be nervous about that NDA violation, or that the abuse allegations might flare up into a PR disaster (like they ACTUALLY DID). I might not hire him for a major role. I might take concerns about his mistreatment of his colleagues more seriously. He might not be a Good Face for my company. But, at the end of the day, he is still a Guy Doing a Job, parasociality be dammned, and not doing This Job will not make anything better for the people he hurt.

(Also your (and my) favorite game has like, one not-pale dude in it and is made by a huge dev team that probably has shitty people in it just because that's what happens when you get a large enough group of people together but like heyyyyy let's all jump onto boogeyman of the week now shall we?)

(now, concerns about parasociality I do respect. Hoyoverse VA's are VERY parasocial, and tend to make a bit of extra money from fans by doing cool Hoyoverse VA things. But most people are like ABUSER = BAD AND GROSS and... ugh onto the next slide).

Problem number 4: ABUSER = BAD AND GROSS is a stupid black-and-white mindset and I think everyone who has this mindset should grow the fuck up. People can and do get better, I know people who have gotten better, people who it would be really fucked up of me to stop speaking to because of things I wasn't even alive for, when I don't even know the people who were hurt. People who have already had enough guilt and now need the space to live again. Hell, I've hurt people. You can't divide people into "good" and "bad" and you have to make room for change because if you do not you will hurt someone badly and that mindset will either break you with guilt or turn you into one of the "bad" people without even realizing it. (i reblogged earlier a comic about this exact phenomenon go read it)

At the end of the day I do think it was a good thing Niosi resigned because jesus fucking christ this was a PR disaster, and I would have hated to see him do something like Elliot Ghindi and use the parasociality of Hoyoverse fans to hurt more people (which is just a possibility, not something Niosi has actually done), but I don't think the internet Hate Mob was a good thing. I think bringing up someone's irrelevant personal details into their work life is a universally bad thing and even though he's a semi-public figure, nobody's private life should be exposed like that. There are court systems for a Fucking Reason and I know that they are flawed but also I genuinely believe that this whole internet tradition of making "callout posts" and stuff is incredibly toxic and abusive and I don't want it to keep happening in the fandoms I'm in.

[b1adie]

Regarding the Moze VA thing…Sunday’s VA has defended him…do you want a link to that travesty of a post?

huh! wowza. just saw it myself. actually awful shit to say.

like… this part especially

how do you write this out and go Yep this is a good thing to say.

link to the entire post, and if the post ends up getting deleted, let me know, i have it saved and i’ll archive it.

[naoreco]

Update #3 on the saga of Kyle McCarley and his defense of Chris Niosi.

(content warnings for sexual assault, abuse, manipulation, and otherwise taking advantage of people)

Today, on July 22, 2024, he made an announcement in his server to apologize for his previous actions and ignorance. Details below, as usual.

First of all, the apology itself.

TLDR: He admits that due to his own lack of understanding of sexual coercion/abuse, he did not realize just how much worse Niosi's behavior was than he initially thought. More importantly, he also apologizes for inserting himself into the situation as a character witness and accepting Niosi's apologies on behalf of other people. While he's going to take a break from the internet, if he returns to Twitter he'll delete his previous statements and recuse himself from the conversation.

At the very least, this is a start. Rather than further doubling down, he's admitted to his mistakes, perhaps similarly to Alejandro Saab. Ideally, he'll learn from this huge blunder and think more critically the next time someone he knows is accused of abuse or assault or anything of the sort.

Whether you can believe him, though, that's up to you. (Personally my disappointment with how he handled it prior kind of sours this for me, and I'm still wondering how it took so long for him to realize that the internet wasn't actually making up the whole thing about him being a serial abuser because first-hand accounts were really not hard to come by. Generally an attitude that still bugs me, despite my relief that he hasn't pulled an Adin Rudd and quadrupled down on it.)

Speaking of first-hand accounts, people who aren't fans of his will likely have more issues with this than those in his fan-server; Look no further than Tara, who is still angry with him, as well as the people she's discussed this with. Here's what she has to say in light of his apology:

As mentioned in the screenshots, because this apology is in a Discord server none of Niosi's victims are in, they haven't gotten a direct apology from Kyle for his own actions yet. (Plus, considering he didn't talk to any of them when he was talking big about not seeing why people called Niosi an abuser, to say they have a bad impression of him is an understatement.) Still, until both parties are in a state to actually talk to each other, there's not going to be much headway.

(Final note before I go: I've also asked Tara if it'll help her to know what was included in the document, though I haven't gotten a response back yet. Maybe I'll edit this post when I do.)

[thowawayuntilfurthernotice]

You'd think after the whole Elliot Gindi fiasco that MiHoYo would stop hiring sex pests to do voice work for their games, but I guess not.

Even if you don't care about all the fucked up shit that Niosi has done, the guy got fired by Nintendo for breaking NDA.

Oh, and he's also the reason why LittleKuriboh quit voice acting.

Chris Niosi is an objectively terrible person with zero redeeming qualities.

The fact that he still manages to weasel his way onto projects is mind boggling.

Also, I've seen plenty of folks on Twitter claiming that the other Honkai VA's might be unaware of Niosi's past, which is odd considering that Niosi himself admitted to everything back in 2019.

This isn't a case of "Oh, they probably didn't know" because he got fired and replaced in Fire Emblem Three Houses not long after his confession.

Chances are a lot of them were already aware of what Niosi did, but they either don't want to say anything out of fear of being blacklisted or they've forgiven him for some stupid reason.

[blurrane]

WE WON.

[sweetjazzygirl]

"Why didn't Chris' victims went to police station if they want him to be gone so badly?"

Tell me you don't know how corrupted the justice system is without telling me you don't know how corrupted the justice system is.

And also tell me you don't know how hard it can be for victims to gather evidences without telling me you don't know how.

I can't believe we have to say this a lot of TIMES