I mean, this would, I would think, depend heavily on the nature and culture of the merfolk in question, their interactions with humans, any stories that they have about humans, how the humans react to them, which specific individual merfolk and humans are involved in contact—and, well, so on and so forth, I daresay!
In short, I don't feel that there's enough information here for much of an answer, at least without presuming a lot on out parts.
[edit] So, can you perhaps give us some details about your merfolk, humans, their interactions, etc., please?
Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Oct 9th 2022 at 9:20:10 PM
My Games & Writing
Another consideration is how you want the merfolk to react to humans. If the merfolk react with curiosity or it's some event where they help each other, like humans helping a beached merfolk back into the water or merfolk helping drowning humans, those are going to lead to a much different story about merfolk-human relations compared to, say, merfolk who sing passing sailors to their deaths for fun, or sadistic humans who torture or experiment on merfolk.
"Jack, you have debauched my sloth."
someone help
taterboi wuz here