Rarity

When Rarity meets Twilight Sparkle for the first time, she is busy decorating Ponyville's pavilion for the Summer Sun Celebration. As soon as Rarity turns to look at Twilight, she expresses concern for Twilight's messy mane and practically forces on her the first of many makeovers while the besotted Spike looks on.

Rarity cares for her own beauty as well. She tries to show up Trixie in Boast Busters by making herself a dress from Trixie's curtain, but Trixie retaliates by ruining Rarity's mane, making her burst into tears and run away. Rarity is also particular about her cleanliness: she panics while trying to avoid getting muddy in Look Before You Sleep and tries to keep herself from getting soaked in the rain to avoid it messing up her mane. This causes some conflict with her friend Applejack, who is, by contrast, not at all bothered about getting muddy or wet. Her fashion consciousness extends even to times of peril: in Dragonshy, she wears a scarf on the way to the dragon's lair, wondering if she should carry a tiara to match. She indulges in a full spa treatment with Fluttershy in Green Isn't Your Color as part of their "weekly get-together", and she puts on eyelash extensions as part of her gala preparations in The Best Night Ever. In MMMystery on the Friendship Express, she wears false eyelashes, and in the latter part of the episode, she wears her hair in such a way to prevent this becoming known to her friends, having lost one of them while trying to make her escape from Pinkie Pie.

In Campfire Tales, Rarity also accentuates the value of inner beauty, as showcased in her story about Mistmane, who gave up her own beauty to save her friend and dedicated her life to spreading beauty across Equestria. When her mane gets ruined in It Isn't the Mane Thing About You, Rarity falls into a state of depression, but when her friends remind her of all she has accomplished, she brings her own inner beauty to the surface with a brand new look that becomes popular and inspires a new fashion trend.

Rarity expresses admiration of Fluttershy's grace and poise during Green Isn't Your Color and implores Fluttershy to model her clothing despite the fact that Fluttershy doesn't enjoy putting herself in front of others and only asks her because Photo Finish is scheduled to come photograph her work. When Rarity loses the spotlight to Fluttershy, she attempts to overcome her envy and remain very supportive of Fluttershy. However, the same could be said of Rainbow Dash and Rarity in Sonic Rainboom. After Rainbow Dash expresses disappointment that the others would not be able to go to Cloudsdale to cheer her on in the Best Young Flyer competition, Rarity insists that they all find a way to go there and support her, and has Twilight test a spell on her that would allow her to fly in Cloudsdale. Rarity gains a lovely pair of butterfly-like wings thanks to this spell, but she steals the spotlight, showing them off to everyone and even entering the competition herself, sending Rainbow Dash into a nervous breakdown. Rarity eventually falls from the sky after burning her wings from flying too close to the sun, much like Icarus of Greek legend. Rainbow Dash spots Rarity as she falls and flies to save her, performing a sonic rainboom in the process. Rarity later apologizes to Rainbow Dash for her behavior and calls her the greatest flier in Equestria.

Rarity's mannerisms are similar to those of Scarlett O'Hara, the histrionic anti-heroine of Gone With the Wind. Many of Rarity's lines are rephrased from lines Scarlett says in the 1939 movie. Her vocabulary is formal, and she is prone to use complex words and more sophisticated, refined phrasing than her friends. As a fashionista, she often uses French-based terms in her vernacular. She speaks with a cultivated trans-Atlantic dialect, and shares some mannerisms with similarly accented Hollywood actresses, such as Katharine Hepburn.

Rarity sometimes gets carried away with her attention to detail. In Look Before You Sleep, she has difficulty tearing herself away from fixing a messy bookcase despite the much bigger problem of a tree that crashed into Twilight's bedroom. In Winter Wrap Up, she becomes so preoccupied with fixing Twilight's messy bird's nest that she spends nearly the entire day on it, when she was supposed to be producing nests in large numbers.

Rarity shows herself to be tough and resourceful in dealing with the Diamond Dogs in A Dog and Pony Show. Even though the others are worried she would panic over how dirty the underground was, Rarity takes control of the situation quite well, manipulating the Diamond Dogs into releasing her and even letting her have several carts full of gems. Rarity's prim ways and aversion to disorder and dirt clashes with Applejack's brashness in Look Before You Sleep. They bicker throughout the episode about each other's attitude, but they finally unite in the face of adversity when a tree crashes into Twilight's library. They work together and eventually come to enjoy the company of one another, which becomes more apparent in later episodes. In Over a Barrel, Rarity is baffled at the level of care Applejack bestows on Bloomberg, an apple tree being taken to Appleloosa for planting. Rarity complains that the tree received a private coach; however, Applejack takes this in stride and takes no offense at Rarity's complaints. Rarity later provides Applejack with much-appreciated support in their attempts to protect Appleloosa from a buffalo stampede. Rarity even comes to compliment Applejack's manners when she doesn't charge Rarity for food from her stand at the Grand Galloping Gala in The Best Night Ever.

Whenever Rarity finds herself in a stressful situation, she has a tendency to eat large amounts of ice cream, as seen in Inspiration Manifestation, P.P.O.V. (Pony Point of View), or It Isn't the Mane Thing About You.

While Rarity cares about her appearance quite a bit, being averse to stepping in mud or risking getting herself messy, she is not above getting her hooves dirty when it comes to helping her friends or creatures in need. She slices off her own tail to calm down the sea serpent in Friendship is Magic, part 2, willing to sacrifice her beauty to help restore the distressed serpent's "fabulosity". This action earns her the element of generosity, and later, when she activates the element, her tail is restored.

The episode Suited For Success heavily revolves around Rarity's generosity, as she is willing to not only make five unique dresses for her friends for the Grand Galloping Gala but additionally re-work and redesign them as her friends desire. The overworking runs Rarity ragged and, despite her friends' designs being horrible fashion-wise, she continues making them in order to satisfy her friends. At the end of the episode, Rarity's friends realize that her original dresses were beautiful and perfectly matched for each of them, and that they should not have taken advantage of Rarity's generosity.

Rarity is hypnotized by Discord into believing a large boulder is actually a giant diamond in The Return of Harmony Part 1. For a short moment she resists the temptation, but soon she becomes brainwashed, obsessively protecting her "diamond" and refusing to let anybody near it, as she becomes possessive and greedy. This continues in The Return of Harmony Part 2, where she refuses to part with the boulder and names it "Tom", while additionally hoarding other items she sees as valuable, such as the jewelry of the Elements of Harmony themselves. After the brainwashing is cured, she throws the boulder away and tells her friends to "never speak of this again" in a hushed but assertive whisper.

In Sisterhooves Social, Applejack mentions to Rarity that sisterhood is a give-and-take relationship that requires compromise. To this end, Rarity takes part in the Sisterhooves Social with Sweetie Belle while disguised as Applejack.

Rarity's generosity is a major plot point of Rarity Takes Manehattan. The unscrupulous fashion designer Suri Polomare uses it against her by asking for some of the unique material Rarity made to "accentuate" her own dresses. Instead, Suri uses the material to copy Rarity's designs. Rarity beats Suri in the end, and pledges not to let the experience sour her on being generous in the future.

In My Little Pony The Movie, Rarity extends her generosity to Capper when she fixes up and adds gold buttons to his coat, causing him to reconsider his con artist lifestyle and help her and her friend.

Rarity works as a fashion designer at Carousel Boutique. Rarity's work is so important to her that during the parasprite crisis in Ponyville in Swarm of the Century, she yells in panic and rushes to her boutique once she realizes the parasprites might get there and eat her work.

Rarity's work ethic and dedication to her customers is depicted in Suited For Success. She initially sews dresses of her own design for her friends, but when they're not satisfied with the result, she sews them brand new dresses under their direction.