fanwank

Explanations invented by fans (of a film franchise, television series, etc.) to gloss over mistakes in continuity.

Its just fanwank with no support in the lore - and not even good fanwank. As you said yourself, Malal does not exist in 40k - and he's never existed. And no, that's not a joke in the vein of 'I've never seen a stealth aircraft' either.

Elements added to a television program or similar entertainment that appeal to avid fans but are of little interest to outsiders.

Fan-producers seem to have integrated 'fanwank' into the new series, but not in a way that reproduces the show's 1980s history, or alienates non-fans.

What they favor is good old fanwank: continuity references, old monsters, and overcomplicated explanations of trivial plot details. If these are perceived as the voice of fandom, then catering to the fans means producing texts that the general audience would find at best boring, at worst impossible to watch.

Of fans, to invent explanations to gloss over mistakes in continuity.

See above on Charlie's Angels. They never seemed to have lives of any sort and weren't interesting to me; they always seemed like soft porn for the guys, but a lot of girls fanwanked and fanficced them into more, so I guess they could qualify.

She accepts, and tell Dwight that Philip was his son all along, but she needed to know he wanted to be with her for her, and just to have a child. Which completely contradicted the DNA test Dwight took at the end of last season, and is also just a crappy thing to do to someone. I almost started fanwanking the first time I saw this ("Maybe The Senator had the DNA tests switched?") before throwing my hands up.