I actually use an alternate timeline for Cocoa’s story. There are three timelines, which result in 4 timelines because one timeline ends up with time travel (long story). This is from the “bad” timeline’s split.
Celestia never drinks the tea, which means that Cocoa attends Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns and never gets the drive she needs to Clover the Clever’s Equestrian Academy. Velvet Star, her schoolmate, uses a powerful time spell to try and fix Cocoa’s issues and ends up causing a split where Nightmare Moon won the rebellion many years ago.
As a result of Nightmare Moon winning, Cocoa’s ancestry now includes batponies and her family gets elevated to a higher standing. Cocoa is a courtier of the night in this timeline, dutifully serving the empress. While being maybe a little bit more sadistic than normal.

…That’s a lot of words for an alternate timeline image thing.