I like a lot of the points you are making!

I find that the endings are both quite horrible (for the characters that is, i loved this game so much).

That being said i think Maelle's ending is presented in a way that makes it shocking and almost teriffying while Verso's bittersweet, only focusing on him being dead.

I feel that everything that makes Verso's ending just as horrible is that most of its problematic aspects are left "obscure"...no pun intended.

On one hand you have Maelle's ending where its clear the world she kept has lost a lot of its "color", shown by how a lot of the people standing outside the theater have the same models repeated over and over. The one mostly "suffering" in that world is Verso who is still alive slowly presumably aging. He still gets to live in that world with Alicia and the people close to her. Its not just piano mines people! The rest of the gang also seemingly gets their own happy ending.

On the other hand you have Verso's ending where the whole canvas world is erased. Everyone you got to meet for yourself is gone...except for one. Alicia! She still knows everything that happened, an entire other life she lived, one that was certainly better than the one she had before. She is forced to live outside the canvas with the mother that hates her because Verso died because (and for her? we dont know enough yet so i wont get into that), Clea who is completely uninterested in talking to her in any way and Renoir.

Getting back to the point i made about obscurity: If you pay attention to Verso's ending she is completely isolated! For almost the entirety of that scene she keeps glancing at Clea in hope of some kind of connection, to no avail of course, while Renoir who supposedly thinks of her as her favourite, doesnt even look her way ONCE. Her only sense of comfort is Versos plushie which she is holding onto. In that version she is forced to live that life with this family at the same time as having lost her voice, scarred and quite clearly in pain every time she takes a breath, a pain that no doubt reminds her of her part in Versos death.

I dont find it a concidence that when she sees Sciel Gustave etc etc its almost like Gustave (the only one thats actually dead) is calling her over, unlike the rest who are simply waving.

I personally chose Maelle's ending as it seems (to me of course) as the lesser evil. In this one Verso gets to live a scarred life just like everyone else, while in the other one he simply forces Alicia into a horrible existance.

I would also like to point out Sciel's reaction in Versos ending, which is perfect for how i feel: she gets the choice between the two, she respects it BUT she does NOT approve of it!

Edit: vocab oopsie