So this is strange, and very frustrating.
I have the Kali Pi set up headless so that on startup, it will connect to my phone's hotspot if it's available. Once it does that, I can move it over to another nearby network using ssh and vnc. Whenever I'm actually at my house testing this, it works like a charm every time, connects to my hotspot with zero issue. Whenever I'm away from the house and can't actually hook my Pi up to a monitor to see what's going on, it doesn't want to connect to my hotspot, even after multiple restarts. Anyone have any ideas?
Possibly helpful info: I have no stored network info for anywhere that I've tried to get it going that might compete with my phone hotspot, and I have my hotspot prioritized in the network configuration anyway.