welcome back!
Finally got the courage to open the ThinkPad up, mess around with it, try a few hacks and it's back on again 🎉
I'm still not sure if it was the hack of disconnecting both external and internal batteries, and the removing the RAM and pressing the power button for many seconds; or simply the power cord was badly connected...
Anyways it's back. Since I finally got into it's insides I'll install a 1TB SSD I've been saving for it for a long time.
Backing up my stuff, pushing unsaved work and getting the newest XFCE Manjaro install for the new SSD.
FWIW old MacBooks can run #linux very well