looks like that PPM was the culprit for the inverted alpha on VCam, attaching an image for others who may run into this:
and for the non-white character alpha issue yup lit was a fog card being heldout! i am putting those fog cards on their own collection and modifier (should not have been lazy and done that from the beginning 
):
However there is still this issue with the sliver of alpha at the top, its in both the VCam and CineCamera renders:
also I tried to used the ObjectID pass, but its flickering. Whats causing that?:
super appreciate your help!