This paragraph sits directly on the body's dark gradient ground. Its near-white ink clears WCAG AA against both gradient stops by a wide margin, so a detector that measures the real ground must not flag it. A detector that assumes a white body flags it at about 1.3:1.
Dark ink on a translucent light wash over the dark gradient. The wash composites to a light surface, so this passes; measuring raw gradient stops would wrongly flag it.
Light ink on the same translucent light wash genuinely fails once the wash is composited over the stops; raw stops would wrongly pass it.
This muted dark-gray ink genuinely fails contrast against both stops of the dark gradient ground, which proves the gradient stops are being measured instead of the checks silently skipping.
Muted ink reached through a transparent wrapper still resolves to the body gradient and still fails against its stops.
Muted ink inside an opacity-zero scene deck. Nobody sees this state, so the contrast checks must not measure it.