The question was never "is it fake." I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that she took a pen to paper, and physically made it herself. However, she did trace, copy or STRONGLY REFERENCE the work of another, much better, and well known artist to the point where one can do an overlay of the two images and have them line up.

Her drawing: [link]
The original drawings: [link] [link] [link] [link]

Now, in the beginning, she simply forgot to cite. Hey. It happens. In the same way, as I illustrated to her, sometimes your brain goes spare, and you try to walk out of a store without paying for your groceries. Are they going to try and stop you when you do that? Yeah. Because mistake or not, it's still Not A Good Thing. Same thing here. She forgot to cite her source. Fine. But when called on it, the proper response is to just fix it. Because otherwise your art is saying to people, "This art here? I did this all by myself. Me. No outside help. Aren't I great?" And this is going to piss off fans of the original artist.

Now as to the quality of the character... she's an OC Mary Sue. And no-one but the original artist, and, for some reason, you seem to care. Are OCs precious to their creators? Yes. But to everyone else, we're just going- "Oh look. Yet another OC in a universe that literally already has hundreds and hundreds of characters. I bet THIS one's going to some how be original though, with a never heard combination of powers and.... oh. Wait. No. Still sucks." You seem to think comments illustrating this point are a blight on DA. Fine. Great. This is the internet, clearly, everyone holds hands and skips under the gumdrop rainbow with the frolicking unicorns. Oooooonly not. People here are assholes. If she's 19 and hasn't yet figured that out, well- she better toughen up fast. I think that the blight on DA is people who don't fucking cite their sources, and try to pass of others art as their own. In the comparison as to "Someone said mean things about my traced art!" and "Someone is attempting to pass another's art off as their own!" the later is a weeeee bit more serious.

So. TL;DR? Probably. I'll sum it up:
"It is hand-drawn, which does indicate a level of respect for the art the character might have been based off. Does that not count for anything?" There is a difference between hand drawn and hand traced. And if she wants to show respect for the original artist she needs to CITE. HER. SOURCES. First time. Without anyone having to remind her.