I am working on a blogging application in Laravel 8.

In the FrontendController controller I have:

namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use App\Models\Settings;
use App\Models\ArticleCategory;
class FrontendController extends Controller
{
    protected $site_settings;
    protected $theme_directory;
    protected $site_name;
    protected $tagline;
    protected $owner_name;
    protected $article_categories;

    public function __construct()
    {
        $this->site_settings = Settings::first();
        $this->theme_directory = $this->site_settings['theme_directory'] ?? null;
        $this->site_name = $this->site_settings['site_name'] ?? null;
        $this->tagline = $this->site_settings['tagline'] ?? null;
        $this->owner_name = $this->site_settings['owner_name'] ?? null;


        // Article categories
        $this->article_categories = ArticleCategory::all();
    }
}

The ArticlesController controller extends the one above:

namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use App\Models\ArticleCategory;
use App\Models\Article;

class ArticlesController extends FrontendController {

	// Articles per page
	protected $per_page = 12;

	public function index(Request $request) {

		// Search query
		$qry = $request->input('search');

		$articles = Article::where('title', 'like', '%' . $qry . '%')
												->orWhere('short_description', 'like', '%' . $qry . '%')
												->orWhere('content', 'like', '%' . $qry . '%')
												->orderBy('id', 'desc')
												->paginate($this->per_page);

		// Search results count
		if ($request->input('search')){
			$article_count = Article::where('title', 'like', '%' . $qry . '%')
												->orWhere('short_description', 'like', '%' . $qry . '%')
												->orWhere('content', 'like', '%' . $qry . '%')
												->count();
		}		

		return view('themes/' . $this->theme_directory . '/templates/index', 
			[
				'theme_directory' => $this->theme_directory,
				'search_query' => $qry,
				'site_name' => $this->site_name,
				'tagline' => $this->tagline,
				'owner_name' => $this->owner_name,
				'categories' => $this->article_categories,
				'articles' => $articles,
				'article_count' => $article_count ?? null
			]
		);
	}

	public function category($category_id) {
		$category = ArticleCategory::where('id', $category_id)->first();
		$articles = Article::where('category_id', $category_id)->paginate($this->per_page);

		return view('themes/' . $this->theme_directory . '/templates/index', 
			[
				'theme_directory' => $this->theme_directory,
				'site_name' => $this->site_name,
				'tagline' => $this->tagline,
				'owner_name' => $this->owner_name,
				'categories' => $this->article_categories,
				'category' => $category,
				'articles' => $articles
			]
		);
	}

	public function show($slug) {
		// Single article
		$article = Article::where('slug', $slug)->first();
		return view('themes/' . $this->theme_directory . '/templates/single', 
			[
				'theme_directory' => $this->theme_directory,
				'site_name' => $this->site_name,
				'tagline' => $this->tagline,
				'owner_name' => $this->owner_name,
				'categories' => $this->article_categories,
				'article' => $article
			]
		);
	}
	
}

The posts list view (index.blade.php):

@extends('themes/' .$theme_directory . '/layout')

@section('content')

<!-- Page Header -->
<header class="masthead" style="background-image: url({{ asset('themes/' . $theme_directory . '/img/home-bg.jpg') }}">
	<div class="overlay"></div>
	<div class="container">
		<div class="row">
			<div class="col-lg-8 col-md-10 mx-auto">
				<div class="site-heading">
					<h1>{{ $site_name }}</h1>
					<span class="subheading">
						@if(isset($category))
							{{ $category->name }}
						@else
							{{ $tagline }}
						@endif
					</span>
				</div>
			</div>
		</div>
	</div>
</header>

	<div class="container">
    <div class="row">
      <div class="col-lg-8 col-md-10 mx-auto">

				@if (isset($search_query))
					<p class="mt-0 text-muted">We found {{ $article_count }} posts containing <span class="quote-inline">{{ $search_query }}</span>:</p>
				@endif

				@if (count($articles))
					@foreach ($articles as $article)
						<div class="post-preview">
							<a href="{{ url('/show/' . $article->slug) }}">
								<h2 class="post-title">
									{{ $article->title }}
								</h2>
								<h3 class="post-subtitle">
									{{ $article->short_description }}
								</h3>
							</a>
							<p class="post-meta">Posted by
								<a href="#">{{ $article->user->first_name }} {{ $article->user->last_name }}</a>
								on {{ date('j F, Y', strtotime($article->created_at)) }}
							</p>
						</div>
						<hr>
					@endforeach
				@endif

				<!-- Pager -->
				@if($articles->hasPages())
					<div class="clearfix">
						<ul class="pagination">
							<li class="next">
								<a class="btn btn-primary {{ $articles->withQueryString()->onFirstPage() ? 'disabled' : '' }}" href="{{ $articles->previousPageUrl() }}">&larr; Newer Posts</a>
							</li>
							<li class="prev">
								<a class="btn btn-primary {{ $articles->withQueryString()->onLastPage() ? 'disabled' : '' }}" href="{{ $articles->nextPageUrl() }}">Older Posts &rarr;</a>
							</li>
						</ul>
					</div>
				@endif
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>
  <hr>
@endsection

Questions

1. What would be an optimal way to reduce code repetition in the two controller?
2. Are there any code optimisation oportunities?