Certain loop behavior has me confused about when to use "../"

[zombachu]

So I'm theming the list of topics in a category and I encountered some unexpected behavior regarding when to use something like {topics.title} vs {../title}.

The relevant code for category.tpl is this:

<!-- BEGIN topics -->
<!-- IMPORT partials/category/topic.tpl -->
<!-- END topics -->

And inside partials/category/topic.tpl:

{../title}
{../postcount}
{../viewcount}
{../teaser.user.username}

API data:

{  
    "name":"General Discussion",
    "title":"General Discussion",
    "description":"A place to talk about whatever you want",
    "topics":[  
        {  
            "title":"Hey now",
            "postcount": 3,
            "viewcount": 3,
            "user":{  
                "username":"testuser"
            },
            "teaser":{ 
                "content":"<p><a class=\"plugin-mentions-a\" href=\"http://localhost:4567//uid/7\">@testuser</a> Does this notify you?</p>\n",
                "user":{  
                    "username":"zombachu"
                }
            }
        },
        {  
            "title":"test",
            "postcount":23,
            "viewcount":8,
            "user":{  
                "username":"zombachu"
            },
            "teaser":{  
                "user":{  
                    "username":"zombachu"
                }
            }
        }
    ]
}

Why does ../whatever in topic.tpl give me the data in the topic that I'm asking for, but {../title} give me the category's title instead of the topic's title? {topics.whatever} works for everything too, including title but it feels weird to me referring to a variable that doesn't exist in topic.tpl.

I understand that .. typically means going up a level/directory but in Persona's categories listing they do the same in partials/categories/item.tpl. Am I doing something incorrectly or is this a bug?