Suppose I have a background photo open in GIMP. I go into another photo and select and copy a small selection.
If I paste this into the background image, it has the dotted border to indicate a selection and I can move it around. If I exit the selection (e.g. by clicking-and-not-dragging an external point with the Rectangle Select tool) then the floating selection merges with the rest of the image. If I then paste again, I get a new floating selection which I can move around freely. This is fine.
Suppose instead I paste as a new layer. Now the selection has a yellow dotted border which I can't unselect.
If I try to paste again into this new layer I can only paste within the current selection. It's as if the new layer has a smaller canvas size than the rest of the image, and space outside it is meaningless.
The floating selection in this case is bounded by the non-transparent part of the "Clipboard" layer. I want to place the red floating selection arbitrarily within the "Clipboard" layer, without it disappearing over the border.
How do I do this? I also want to scribble on the Clipboard layer and do other stuff, so pasting a new layer isn't a complete solution.