Oh, I was trying to understand why cheap chiniseum USB-C-powered products off Amazon were only charging from a cheap USB-A brick and not from my quality USB C chargers.

try combining a type c male to USB female adapter and a USB A to type c cable together to get a working type c to type c cable

Ugh, that one was killing me the other day. I went through 3 different cables before I found a hardware designer on the company's discord who could explain the issue.

Ok, that explains it. I have a usb powered LED lamp that I’ve been trying to recharge via a c to c cable- but it only works with a b to c.

Thought it might be the cable at first, but it was general. Just couldn’t think of a reason why it wasn’t supported though…

I suspect the microUSB would actually fail in OTG mode for the same reasons in that case though? It's the same thing in terms of needing extra resistors.