1. noun.

The stocks were a wondrous device which imprisoned one contestant((Most likely a [[Newbie]])) at a time so that artists could make money doing caricatures of them, and small children could climb onto their backs.((The artists, presumably.))

The stocks were once claimed by [[Rosin]], but the most recent conflict, involving a stubborn brick wall fighting other stubborn brick walls,((with cat ears!)) led to it being an open democracy.((Whatever the Hell that meant))((It meant being forced to endure every newbie who wandered through [[Improbable Central]] claiming it as theirs.))

The stocks were often not where expected,((And, indeed, to this day, they still aren't, by the virtue of not being anywhere)) having been in such locales as the top of the pub, a shack in Kittania, animated as they galloped through SquatHole, and turned into an animate rubber duck that showed up a few weeks before the stocks were transformed, thanks to a collusion by [[Snickerer]] and [[Kassil]].

Staying in the stocks increased [[you|your]] [[charm]] by one point for every [[time|real hour]] you spend in them, explaining why various contestants fought so much over something so humiliating.

Years after being removed, the stocks were replaced by Stox, a bizarre, wriggling purple lump that wraps around contestants' necks and causes them to stumble around in circles, sweat, drool, and generally make fools of themselves. Stox lives in [[NewHome]].

2. noun.
Supply. As in "The stocks ran out, and now they are gone."