That was it, thank you a thousand times! Apparently I had the wrong driver installed somehow. And thank you for noticing the nuance in the photo, I realized I had uploaded a misleading screengrab after the fact but I assure you I tried it correctly the first time. Anyways, for those of you who might be having this same issue follow the link provided above and follow the instruction but here's what fixed mine:
Make sure you have the latest version of Zadig,
open Zadig,
hold esc key on keyboard and plug it in,
click "options" in Zadig,
Select "List All Devices",
In the dropdown select "ATm32U4DFU",
Then to the right of the green arrow (if not green do not attempt to install a driver!) select "libusb-win32" and NOT: WinUSB,
select "replace driver",
once finished, unplug keyboard,
open QMK toolbox (close and reopen if already open),
select .hex file you wish to flash,
hold esc key and plug in keyboard,
flash
I assume it's the same if the keyboard didn't have a driver on it to begin with either. And once again superuser4, thank you for saving my evening with your help.