Re: fantasy book suggestions
Dresden is very, I don't want to call it stereotypical but if you want to avoid stereotypical urban fantasy battle scenes it's the series that literally established the tropes, so be warned. Anyway, let's see:
Most Discworld books by Terry Pratchett: for the most different/nonaggressive, try Going Postal, Making Money, and Unscene Academicals. The last is explicitly about an Orc trying to help reverse the stereotype that orcs rip people's heads off etc. by playing football. Warning: surprising depth and humor ensue (but then anyone who knows anything about Pratchett knows that's what Pratchett is all about).
The Last Unicorn is a classic that I think everyone should read. It's poetic for lack of a better way of putting it. There's some violence but not much, and it's more about a unicorn learning what mortality means, among other things. In the same vain there's Patricia A McKillip, especially Book of Atrix Wolf and Riddle-master of Hed, which are more on the aggressive side but are also about subverting tropes--Riddle-master has an entire subplot about what it's like to shapeshift into a tree, and when there is violence etc. it's not downplayed as this good shiny thing, and 90% or so of the first Riddle-master is the hero trying to run away from being forced into being the chosen one. They're also both poetic in the way Last Unicorn is,
There isn't much urban fantasy without violence. The best I can do is suggest things that don't downplay it in a "isn't this a cool story? How about we kill stuff" fashion. You might try Matthew Swift, which at least has unique powers and plots, and he's going up against things like the personification of what you do in the dark and the literal death of cities. Sadly the first is more typical revenge, but against a magician who has half-accidentally separated from his shadow which is now a personification of hunger.
There's Gaiman's Ocean at the End of the Lane, which is really hard to describe. I think it's his best work, but I don't think I can summarize the plot at all other than to say it's worth a read.
If you're willing to read something that is nominally M/M romance, there's Wolfsong by Klune. It's violent in the latter half and definitely has explicit sex a couple times, but really it's on the M/M romance shelf only because there's nowhere else to put it since urban fantasy with gay characters just sort of has to end up there. It's about broken people learning to be a family and has amazing characterization and the violence/dark and troubled past/etc has real consequences that the characters have to work past. I always really try to get people to read it because it's one of the stereotypical "don't judge a book by its cover" situations. Unfortunately the sequels are meh. I go in for character-driven stuff, and it's definitely got that.
Klune now has broad recognition outside M/M romance for House in the Serulian Sea, which I hated and found incredibly bland, but being as everything on goodreads now lists it near the top of the lists next to stuff that wins hugos etc, he obviously did something right with it. That one is entirely nonviolent as I recall.
There's Charles DeLint, which is an acquired taste--if you want to try him, just pick one that looks interesting. He did urban fantasy in the 90s before the modern trends of everything being basically vampires and werewolves in a city fighting it out.
Maybe I can think of more stuff that fits the criteria later. If you're willing to add sci-fi and web originals, I've been following They Ar Smol for a while--it's basically the opposite of almost all the other sci-fi out there, sort of like Long Way to a Small Angry planet but longer and with the good people doing good things dial turned up more. Plot is that it turns out that humans are the smallest/weakest/shortest lived aliens in the galaxy, but inspire a universal cuteness reaction in everyone else like cat memes, then plot that takes this idea seriously ensues. It's nice and heartwarming, and deeper than it sounds (ex: what media we export has political implications because it's the equivalent of showing someone a video of someone disemboweling kittens, and learning to be doctors for us is hard for them).
It's kind of a shame that I apparently am very good at finding things where the description makes them sound lame but then everyone I convince to read it thinks it's at least good, but meh. I guess that's what happens when you read enough that you do in fact prove that it is possible to run out of books.
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