Question UI elemetns ordering on screen space - camera are all over the place

I have a screen space - camera ui setup so I could render some particles (vfx graph to be precise).
My issue is that no matter how I order my elements, both text mesh pro text and the particles themselves render up front. I've even tried creating a different canvas for them and placed it in the back, but to no luck.
It used to work (used to), but not anymore and I'm not sure what happened. Figured before I start messing with the version control I'll ask here.

Other weird things I've noticed:
Different fonts will appear behind elements, but I'm not sure what's the difference between them.
Things I've tried -
Playing around with every game object's z position, different canvas settings, different font settings.

Just to be clear, my goal is to have a canvas that shows an image, behind it some text, behind it another image, and behind it my vfx.

thanks!