Fur Shur you don't want to start with anything bigger than an hydrogen atom with but one proton (hence Nature's preference for fusing hydrogen).
Obviously stars represent both the high pressure, hot fusion model as well as the low pressure, cold fusion model.
We know that attempts to recreate the high pressure, hot fusion model on Earth (In a controlled fashion) results in nothing more than a multibillion dollar rathole of waste as semi-employed physicist after semi-employed physicist comes up with yet another reason to waste our resources on it.
And when NIF actually achieves fusion later this year ( and it will) we’ll see your responses then