I used to think that worked, and at some point it (maybe) did. There were/are also magic strings you can mute.

I think currently your only hope is to use the "latest tweets" timeline, complete with periodically resetting your preference when Twitter decides to change it for you, which is abusive behavior on their part.

I prefer the chrono timeline and no "likes are stochastic retweets" nonsense, so that's a happy convergence for me. Who knows how long it'll last; Twitter seems to despise their users and I'm quite convinced no one in power at the company actually uses the platform.

Where in settings? I've just checked everything.

Sorry, it's actually on the timeline. On twitter.com, look at the stars to the right of "Home" right at the top. Click that, then "See latest Tweets instead"